


The Meddler

by sareliz



Series: Loki of Midgard [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Non-Psychotic Loki, Sane Loki, Warning: Loki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:47:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9827186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sareliz/pseuds/sareliz
Summary: The continuing saga of the Crown Prince Loki as he establishes the Asgardian Embassy on Earth, joins Avengers, manages Chaos, works on Lying only judiciously and never to Darcy, and enjoys as much Mischief as possible. (And has a lot of very athletic sex with his darling wife.)Will Loki remember his dream of Thanos in time? Will we learn how Darcy instinctively knows how to do Elven Sex Magic? Will we see Bucky come out of his suicidal ideation? Will we find out how Natasha managed to spontaneously do magic? Will we ever see Thor grow the hell up?Find out!(But read the prequels, Loki of Midgard, and The Crown Prince, first!)





	1. Wherein Loki manages chaos.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linusmir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linusmir/gifts).



> This work is dedicated to my darling husband, LinusMir, because he's awesome and full of win, and my beta in all things, fiction only being one of them.

Loki surveyed his domain. It was odd and a bit chaotic, and really that was one of the reasons he loved it. As of 8:00 A.M., E.S.T., which was six in the morning, local time,  _ everyone knew he was here.  _ Darcy’s opinion piece would go into the Sunday edition of the New York Times in two days. The number of people who had thought of him with any great emphasis were well into the hundreds of millions. It was, at this point, a soothing background hum in his mind.

And now it was seven in the morning.

He looked at the group assembled around the established bifrost site. Everyone had come out for the morning’s activities. The dozen elite warriors who provided security to the entirely insecure construction area that was the Embassy at the moment were standing at their ease, joined by their families. The few support staff they’d hired so far, from the Institute’s business manager right down to the maintenance personnel were crowded in a clump near the contingent from Asgard. Even the architects who had arrived early for their meeting with Darcy had come to watch the spectacle. And then of course, there was his own household, so to speak. Darcy was in traditional dress and armor, as was Jane. Their respective attendants and associates were present and watchful. The bodyguards, at least, looked nearly relaxed, for however much he knew they truly weren’t.

All was in readiness.

Loki stepped back between Darcy and Jane, and offered his arm to his wife.

_ “You do like to put on a show, don’t you, babe?”  _ she asked in the quiet of her mind, her eyes sliding to his, her head not moving much at all.

A quick laugh was his only response to her, because of  _ course  _ he liked putting on a show.

Loki looked up, because no matter where your planet was in its spin, nor even in its rotation, Heimdall had reported to him long ago when he was still but a curious lad asking many questions of many people, that he always heard you better if you looked up. So, Loki looked up into the sky and quietly spoke to the Keeper of the Bifrost.

“Heimdall, all is in readiness. You may send them, now.” He spoke in English, knowing Heimdall would understand regardless, but truly it was for the benefit of the more curious bystanders.

Only a moment later and in shining rainbow hues distinguishable from the base silver, the bridge between worlds was activated. When it receded, it left twelve stumbling apprentices, plus trunks, in its wake.

Loki spoke to them in the Common Tongue of Asgard.  _ “Welcome to you, my new apprentices. You have arrived in the center of what will someday be a lovely compound, the retreat of all Asgardians on Midgard. I am Loki, your master for the next decade. At my side you see my wife, whom you will obey in all things. Here also next to me is the Doctor Foster, who will be your supervisor. You will also obey her in all things.  _

_ “This experience will be, in many respects, very different for you.”  _ And here, Loki paused, laughed at something only he could hear, and duly noted the accelerating aspects of Chaos in his welcoming speech.  _ “You will be asked to learn things no apprentice is asked to learn. You will be asked to think in ways no apprentice is asked to think. You will bear both power beyond your power and responsibility beyond what you may think you merit. You will be required to make more moral progress than is usually expected, and if you do not wish it to be so, you may return to your former mistresses with no punishment save your own. _

_ “This experience will also be, in some respects, quite familiar to you. We have striven to create some familiarity in an entirely foreign place, and you may always inquire as to the points of difference. Indeed, we require your curiosity. It is one of the reasons you were all selected in the first place. _

_ “You will have two days to become accustomed to your new home before your chores and studies will begin. Questions should be initially presented to the Doctor Foster, or her designates. Explore where you will and learn of your new home, and I will be present to you again on the morning of the third day.” _

Loki continued on in English, knowing that all could now understand him, and indeed, his apprentices would understand that he was using no translation spell, but had actually  _ learned  _ the language. It would make it easier to swallow when he told them they would be doing the same thing. 

“And with that, my new apprentices, I invite you right now to take up your trunks and step away from the center circle on which you stand. We have a visitor, a formidable warrior, and guardian of this realm who has just been alerted to my presence and wishes to ensure I mean no harm to his home.”

Loki could hear the sound of his flight now, but he had felt his chaos the moment his decision to come had been made. 

Loki cast an illusion to make himself - only himself - look as innocuous as possible. Now it seemed he wore a plain dark green tee-shirt, a belted pair of dark jeans, and cowboy boots.

_ “Nice boots,”  _ Darcy commented in his head.  _ “Who’s coming to breakfast, exactly?” _

_ You would have me ruin the surprise, my darling?  _ he asked silently of his wife.  _ He does so enjoy a dramatic entrance.  _

Darcy was quiet, but Loki could hear Romanov and Rooftop quietly palm their guns. Borghild silently lifted the hood that had been hanging down Darcy’s back, up over her head, its plain edge to rest elegantly just past her coronet, on her forehead. Thor did the same for Jane. The warriors across the circle shoed their families back and were just on the verge of doing the same for everyone else.

“You need not be afraid,” Loki said, addressing his remarks first to the apprentices, and then quite pointedly to the warriors. “He means no harm at present.”

After three heartbeats, and the sound getting louder and louder, Loki spoke again, amplifying his voice somewhat. “I present to you, ladies and gentlemen, warriors and apprentices, Mr. Tony Stark, the Iron Man.”

All eyes were on Mr. Stark as he landed with a hard thud on the packed earth.

This was a moment, Loki was sure, Tony would have preferred to have had a dramatic soundtrack rise to the fullness of its crescendo, but alas. He would have to make do with a rapt, if wary, audience. It was, Loki considered, better than nothing. He suppressed the smirk and instead arranged his features into that of calm inquiry.

“Good morning, Mr. Stark,” Loki said pleasantly and in a conversational tone, as if he weren’t in the middle of the desert surrounded by fifty or so witnesses and four teams of construction personnel beginning their day.

The desert went quiet as all of the heavy equipment around them was turned off and momentarily abandoned. This was, Loki considered further, the most interesting thing to happen in this desert in many a year.

Loki wondered for a brief moment, and not for the first time in the past six minutes, if he should continue to surf this chaos, altering it as little as possible, or weave the strands to his own ends?  _ Decisions, decisions… _

Without missing a beat, Loki continued. “Welcome to the Embassy of Asgard. Have you had breakfast?”

“No, but that’s not why I’m here,” Stark said, his voice altered through his mask to sound lower and more resonant. More menacing. It really was an adorable gesture of intimidation.

“Well, why don’t you tell me over breakfast? And then perhaps stay to sign some autographs? I’m sure all the humans among us are utterly  _ starstruck _ at your presence.”

A delicate snort from his right. The little spider stood, mostly silently, at Darcy’s other side.

“Well. Most of them,” Loki amended, grinning.

“Romanov! What the hell are you doing here?” Stark asked, his words flowing fast like river rapids. “I thought you worked for me? Or at least SHIELD?”

“Not for the last two months,” she quipped dryly.

“Social climber,” Stark retorted.

Romanov was silent, but Loki was not.

“Oh, do come along, Mr. Stark,” he said, his tone one of pure affability and utter friendliness. “Our accommodations are rustic, but our chef is excellent. We have much to discuss, I’m sure, but your armored presence is making my warriors twitchy. Won’t you take your helmet off? As a tiny gesture that you mean no harm at this  _ particular  _ moment?”

The helmet came off, but Tony Stark remained in the exact center of the bifrost rune. Loki resisted the impish urge to have him sent to Asgard without further ado. Instead, he smiled.

Stark was resisting, but the chaos that the human had already embraced as a life principle was practically laying at Loki’s feet, purring. It was clear to Loki that Tony really didn’t want to like him  _ nearly  _ as much as he actually did.

It was enough to make a man giggle for sheer, giddy joy. Loki refrained from this as well.

_ ‘Mischief, what the hell are you doing?’  _ Loki had been, more or less, filtering out his wife’s inner fangirl reaction since he announced their guest, but this seemed to come from her calmer inner voice.  _ ‘And are we really about to have breakfast with Tony Stark?’ _

He was prevented from answering in any manner, by the center-of-attention’s response.

“Look here, Brit Pick,” he said, tucking his helm underneath one arm and gesturing with the other. One finger was very nearly wagged in Loki’s direction, hampered only by the fact that his suit restricted gestures involving fluidity. “Let’s get something clear. If you in any way, shape, or form, directly or indirectly fuck up my planet, I’m holding you responsible. And I will take it out of your hide.”

Loki smiled, even as the warriors audibly bristled and the apprentices gasped in horror and disbelief. A small child, the son of one of the warriors, began to cry, and the sound tore through the other quiet noises. Darcy was suddenly thinking rather darker thoughts toward her former idol. The tension was quite thick.

“I would expect no less of you, and you have my assurances that not only do I come in peace, but I will aid in Earth’s protection in whatever way I can. Now, I see you are  _ not  _ wearing the Mark V, but if you care to remove your armor and weapons, I can promise you technical assistance in donning them once more.”

Loki’s smile remained firm and friendly, despite the tension around him. In the moments of silence that followed, the apprentices were the first to be affected by his calm demeanor. Nine of twelve mouths closed, and six of those seemed visibly calmer. The warriors remained unamused and insulted, the child continued to cry, and Darcy was…  _ incensed _ on his behalf, and unlikely to be calmed any time soon.

Breakfast should be quite interesting.

* * *

Jane was thrilled that she’d already eaten. While she wouldn’t mind having a technical discussion with the former CEO of Stark Industries, and she did have a moment of starstruck wonder at seeing his suit  _ and that reactor in his chest cavity _ , he was obviously an obnoxious person to be around and she was much, much happier to be working with Thor and Sharon getting the twelve settled into their trailers - designed by Loki with the baby mages in mind - and make sure they had the concept of toilets, potable water, and electrical outlets. She was fairly certain she’d get the entire scoop from Darcy at some later point, anyway. It would be all of the information and none of the drama and that was fine with Jane.

There were four trailers. Three apprentices would share each one, but the interiors were vastly simplified from the standard living trailers that Jane and Darcy had first inspected. No one needed kitchens, for instance, as there was a central kitchen and dining area that for the time being, everyone used. Instead, in the trailers, there were three small bedrooms, large enough for a twin bed, a bedside table, a small bookshelf, a comfortable chair, and floor space for a trunk, which each apprentice did in fact bring. There was a slightly larger bathroom than the standard trailer boasted, with a separate toilet room and sink, and shower room and sink, with storage for towels and toiletries. The rest of the common space in the trailer consisted only in a mid-sized room with a thick, plush rug, tapestried wall hangings and thick pillows for sitting on. It was a meditation space, and apparently it was far nicer than anything Loki had had when he’d been an apprentice. In the hallway there was a watercooler with three mugs that hung on the wall next to it.

And that was it.

Jane had protested at first - this was New Mexico, not Sparta - and Loki had reminded her that what felt austere to Jane would feel like palatial comfort to the apprentices. They had private and semi-private spaces, their own bedrooms, they were not required to bathe outside, meditate on bare stone, prepare all meals, clean everyone else’s living space, or serve him daily. 

And organizing their space, well, it sort of made Jane stop and think about just how much stuff she owned. Yeah, most of it was in storage right now, and she’d give up her collection of teapots over her cold, dead body, but she remembered standing in the first trailer after she, Thor, and Sharon had finished making the beds and laying out the pillows. It was simple. It was comfortable. And after a full day of working and learning and spellcasting - or whatever Loki had up his sleeve for his portion - they would be comfortable spaces to return and retreat to. And for people who needed to spend serious time in meditation every day, this space obviously made that a priority. 

Standing in one of those furnished but empty trailers made Jane a little nostalgic for what, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like she ever had lived such a sparse, monastic life, but when she went back to her own trailer that evening, it felt crowded. When she stopped to examine individual things, they all had such meaning to her, but when she blurred her eyes and just saw the sheer volume of  _ stuff  _ she had accumulated around her, it left her feeling vaguely unpleasant.

The next day she had walked Darcy through and said nothing about it, and the topic quickly shifted to architect's plans and the former-SHIELD contractors and construction crews. There were four different teams working on four different projects; a landing strip and helicopter pad, the internal roadways and buried electrical and plumbing systems, the water and compost plant, and the solar and wind farm. Infrastructure was the first order of business, after the temporary shelters had been put into place.

Jane thought of the progress they’d made in two short months. The temporary cell tower was up, the internal roadways were as finished as they could get at this point. The tech gullies were everywhere and bridged - Loki was aghast at the idea that they would bury the plumbing and electrical, and then pave over it, only to have to dig it up and break the paving in six months when there was a problem to fix or something to add. He called it planned obsolescence, and Jane couldn’t quite disagree with him. So instead, all of the plumbing and electrical were in large conduits that were laid in gullies by the interior roads. Every footpath or road had a bridge when it crossed the path of the gully. The conduits were easily opened and easily closed, and even the bridges could be removed and replaced by one of their new maintenance crews. But more than that, the wind and solar farm was finished and generating energy, and the landing strips were all done, as well as the hangers that seemed to go up overnight. Now crews were just beginning work on the parking garage, the entrance gallery, the air traffic control tower, and the building that would hold the main kitchens and banqueting hall, as well as a ballroom and training facility.

Well, they were, until Tony Stark showed up and threatened Loki right in front of everybody.

Really, he was bombastic enough for anything, if any of the media coverage of him was even slightly correct. But this was her friend and patron Stark had just threatened. Jane didn’t quite have the same reaction as the apprentices, but she wasn’t far from it.

Speaking of whom, they did look a little shell-shocked. Time to be helpful.

“Hello. My name is Jane Foster. I’m very excited to be working with you all, and I think that once you’re all settled in and start understanding the scope of what Loki and I will be having you do, you’ll be excited, too. Next to me is my Midgardian assistant Sharon James and my assistant from Vanaheim, Thor, and yes, he was named for the prince.” 

She knew no one would recognize him, because of the geis Frigga placed on him, but they would wonder at his name. Apparently it was somewhat taboo to name someone after someone else while the someone else was still alive. Given that Vanir culture was just slightly different, Darcy and Jane figured this might stem some of the natural curiosity of the baby mages. Maybe. 

“First we’ll be taking you to your rooms so you can put your trunks down, and we’ll show you a few details about the magics that will make your life easier here, and the hazards of operating them incorrectly. After this, we’ll show you where you will be eating and when, and we’ll end our brief tour in one of the spaces where we’ll be doing some of our work and learning. Do you have any questions?”

Two apprentices met her eyes and everyone looked down to about the area of her knees.

“No?” Jane paused and the two who met her eyes continued to do so. “Well, alright then, pick up your trunks and let’s go.”

“My lady, a word,” Thor said quietly, touching her armored shoulder. She barely felt his touch, but she was keenly aware of where he was and what he was doing most of the time he was around her, anyway. In fact, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up, but Jane was almost used to that by now. She looked back and over to where Thor stood, just behind her and off to the left. She raised an eyebrow.

“There are two who have questions, if you wish to call on them.”

Without thinking, Jane looked back round and saw that the same two apprentices were still looking at her, and no one else was. She turned slightly to face Thor.

“You mean the ones staring at me?” she asked in a low voice.

Thor nodded and smiled.

“Right. Got it. That’s not weird or anything.”

Thor contained a laugh and said nothing. His smile was rather beautiful, though. Not that she technically noticed.

Jane turned back around and looked at the apprentice on the left. “Yes? What is your question?”

It was a young woman who had been called on. She looked to be about sixteen. Jane knew her to be exactly three hundred and ninety. They all were.

“Mistress, how shall we address you?”

Loki and Jane had argued about this.

“You may call me Dr. Foster, or ma’am,” Jane said calmly, as if she hadn’t had an ongoing disagreement with her patron about familiarity. “In ten years when you are no longer apprentices, I expect you to call me Jane.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the apprentice said slowly, but not unhappily. It was as if she was testing the new word. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome,” Jane said, and had a brief moment of wondering if every answer would be greeted with a thank you. She had hopes it would not. She was rather afraid it would.

Jane looked to the second apprentice, still looking up at her. This one was a young man who looked no older than the first, and who was, in fact, exactly the same age.

“Yes? What is your question?”

“Do you know what Master Loki meant? Of what we will learn, and what we will do? And why we must wait two more days? And who was that dreadful man who dared to threaten the Master in his own home? Does he not know who the Master is? What the Master could  _ do?”  _

Jane tried very hard to keep the laughter on the inside, but it was leaking out. This was probably the first of many, many fanboy moments. All the same, one of the other apprentices hit the questioning one lightly on the side and glared at him.

“It’s alright,” Jane said, laughing slightly. “Questions are good. Questions are always good. You’ll never be penalized for asking a question, even if it can’t be answered immediately. Let’s walk while we talk. If anyone else has a question while we go, please don’t try to get my attention by staring at me. I’m Midgardian and I’m not used to that. If I can see you, please raise your hand. If I can’t or you’re holding a large trunk, please simply say, ‘Dr. Foster, I have a question.’ Grab your trunks and lets go.”

All of them were thin and did not look particularly strong, yet all of them hefted their mid-sized wooden trunks by the side handles with seeming ease.

“My lady,” Thor said quietly at her side. “Loki may not be pleased about this.”

“Where I come from, Thor, staring is rude. That’s a cultural adjustment I’m sure Loki will be fine with.” Then she turned and began walking. Immediately she realized that the crowd behind her wouldn’t be able to hear her well. And she was not about to start walking backwards.

“Sharon, you lead the way. Thor and I will go walk in the middle.” It took a moment to sort things out, but eventually they were all walking in a clump, taking up the entirety of the interior roadway which was only twelve feet wide to begin with.

“To answer your question, and wait, I need to learn your names. So, new rule. Every time you ask a question, please start by stating your name. There are twelve of you, and it will take me a little bit of time to memorize your names. You might also do this for the princess. I’m sure Loki has his own ways of remembering who everyone is. So anyway, apprentices, will the first one who asked a question please tell me your name?”

“Runa, ma’am.”

“Runa. Runa. Runa. Okay. Thanks. And what’s your name?” Jane asked the young male apprentice who walked next to her, the one who had asked the long series of questions.

“Eluf, ma’am.”

“Eluf. Eluf. Okay. So, you asked a lot of questions. I’d hate to ruin Loki’s surprise, though I’m sure he can cook up more. But I think he’ll have you working on some of the foundational magics that the Embassy Enclosure is going to be using on a daily basis. With him, of course. And one of his friends, I think. And as for the rest, you’ll be doing some preparation work, and a lot of reading. How many of you have read Loki’s books on modern Midgard?”

Nine teenagers choused politely that they had.

“Wow, more than I expected. Okay, that’s good. For the rest of you, we have a few copies that you can share. And anyone who wants to refresh their memories can do that as well. That’s part of what you’re going to be doing in the next two days. Reading. When you’re done with Loki’s books, we have others for you. You’ll all eventually read them all, but reading is a big part of what you’ll be doing in the next ten years. But not all of it, of course. Anyway, I know that Loki wanted to be considerate of you and give you time to settle in and be comfortable. I realize that you may not be used to such courtesy, but I think you’ll find your new master perfectly difficult in other and probably unexpected ways. He’s like that. Let’s see, other things you’ll be learning. Well, I might as well just be clear: you need to learn to read and write the language I’m speaking. Don’t worry. We’ll teach you all. That’s part of what Loki has been working hard on these last two months. The other part of your question had to do with Iron Man. He’s… well, I’m not going to make excuses for him. He is what he is. And I think I can safely answer that he does  _ not _ really know who Loki is, and he really has no concept of what Loki can do, even without his magic. But don’t worry. Loki can handle it. Really.”

They continued on their way and had a fair bit to go yet, so Jane decided to open it up.

“Dr. Foster, I have a question.”

“Okay, ask,” Jane said.

“I am Tue, ma’am,” the young man answered. “May I inquire as to the magic you have mastered, Dr. Foster?”

Everyone was so polite. It was a little jarring, and yet… kind of nice. And unlike Academia, they probably meant it.

“Well, I’m not a sorceress. I’m a scientist. Midgard doesn’t use the same sort of magic that Asgard, or the rest of Yggdrasil does. But no, that’s not quite exact. It’s better to think that the Source and Dream you know and study, I know and study from a different angle. You call what you do magic, I call what I do science. You are studying to be masters and mistresses of magic. I am a doctor, which is what we call those who have the highest amount of learning in a specific scientific field, and I’m a doctor of astrophysics, which is a branch  of science. It means I study, among other things, the stars. But the reason you’re here is so that Asgard, and really, the rest of Yggdrasil can understand and study Source and Dream the way Midgard does, in addition to the way you’ve already been taught. Because you see, you can do things that I can’t do, and I can do things that you can’t do. But we don’t need to remain ignorant. Midgardians, in general, abhore ignorance. It’s one of our defining traits. I think you’ll notice it come up again and again. 

“And since I can’t do magic but you could do science, it’s probably fastest and easiest for you to learn science and together with a common language and deep curiosity, we’ll figure out how to translate magic into science and science into magic. This is, by the way, what Loki has been slowly doing on his own for the last hundred years, and much faster now that we’re working together. And now that you’re all here, once we get you settled in and you have a basic understanding, our work will make progress even faster still.”

And the questions continued. Some of them were simple.  _ Is it true that Midgardians do not generally live to see their first century complete?  _ Some of them were not simple.  _ Do you know why Master Loki has never taken apprentices before? And why he has done so now, but so briefly? And so many?  _ Jane decided not to answer that one. Loki could explain himself, or not, as he chose.

_ Will we be serving the Master and Her Highness?  _

_ If we don’t, who will? _

_ Do you know how much moral progress we will be asked to make in but ten years? _

_ What will become of us after our apprenticeship ends? Must we leave Midgard and all of the work we’ve only just begun? _

That one Jane answered.

“Good question. After your apprenticeship, you’ll be free to leave and continue your life at home, or go to study further with other masters as Loki did. You will also be welcome to stay and continue the work we will be doing here, translating science into magic and magic into science, and aiding Loki and myself as we continue the work. I really can’t say it’s positively done until we’ve entirely rewritten Midgardian science to account for magic, established the Internet of Yggdrasil, and figured out how to create another bifrost. Which is what I was doing when Loki found me.”

_ What is the Internet? _

_ What are computers? _

_ What is electricity? _

Jane smiled. It was turning out to be a fantastic morning.

* * *

Darcy wished she had already eaten.

The plan had been to eat, not at the head table where she usually did, but at one of the round tables in the center of the room, all the better to discuss the thing the architects  _ came here to discuss _ .

Which, obviously, was not going to happen now.

Fucking Iron Man. Fucking Tony Stark.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Loki were also pissed. But no, no, of course Loki wasn’t in the slightest offended, because of course Loki’s sense of humor had kicked in - Darcy’s, notably, had not. Of course Loki now saw this as a challenge to see just how quickly he could win over Tony Stark utterly and completely. Because no matter how much Stark was a hot mess in thruster boots, he was also one of Loki’s favorites.

And all the architects were busy watching with awe the back and forth between Loki and Iron Man. It was better than reality tv, Darcy was sure. If only Darcy gave a shit. Which she did not.

And Darcy was desperately trying to remember how to meditate, and failing, and so instead, concentrating on her eggs benedict with a double side of bacon. Mostly. Because she was also decked out in leather and armor and covered in a wool cloak and she was somehow still  _ cold _ , because no matter what she said and to whom, every single building she was in was too heavily air conditioned,  _ and she was freezing her ass off. Everywhere. She. Went. _

No. Breakfast. Darcy could totally do this. It was like meditation, but with bacon. And there was coffee, orange juice, and even some sort of healthy fruit-vegetable juice that had a whole lot of kale in it. Yes. Concentrating on breakfast would be the way she would get through this without hurting anyone, because Iron Man had left his weapons at the door and Darcy still had her cutlery. He was totally within fork-stabbing distance. But Loki would be annoyed at that.

Or would he? Maybe not. He took a lot in stride. Maybe he’d be totally fine with his wife getting a bit stabbity with the salad fork. Just on special occasions. Like now.

_ ‘Darling, do refrain from attacking our guests with the tableware,’  _ came his voice in her head, full of laughter and light and joy and bunny rabbits.

Fucking husband. Fucking husband and his fucking friends. They were all insane.

No, Darcy was just going to concentrate on her breakfast...

But no, she couldn’t even enjoy her kale juice. Why? Because Iron Man was now hogging it.

“Ooo, is that kale?” he asked, which was the only part of his unending stream of inanity that Darcy paid attention to, because she was focusing on her food, thank you very much. And then Tony Stark drank all the fucking kale juice at the table.

And then signed autographs. Including the architect's plans for her house. He signed right over the master suite.

Asshole.

* * *

Borghild had been with her new mistress, the Princess Darcy, for twelve days. They had not been twelve days Borghild could have ever anticipated based on previous experience.

Previously, Borghild had been a member of the Queen’s Guard, second in command to Svanhild the Brave. The days had passed calmly and serenely, as the last time the Queen was in battle had been before Borghild had been born, and trips such as Queen Frigga was wont to make required vigilance but were, in essence, almost entirely free of threat.

Midgard was a veritable prison realm compared to the peace of the twin realms of Asgard and Vanaheim, from the latter of which the Queen drew all of her personal shieldmaidens. 

In Midgard, warlords killed, tortured, and bullied their own people.

In Midgard, madmen filled with anger and hate took weapons of devastating effect into the schools of infants and engaged in the wholesale slaughter of children.

In Midgard, magic could be used to  _ attack _ , without the creators of it feeling the full brunt of the devastation and havoc they have wrecked. 

Midgard was stunning in its level of ambient threat and Borghild was, reasonably, stunned.

A warrior-sorcerer the likes of Prince Loki would naturally feel at ease even here, but Borghild was the Princess’s constant shadow from the time she emerged from her quarters in the morning to the time she retreated back to them with the Prince in the evening. She could do no less and still sleep at night.

She worked closely with the formidable shieldmaiden Natasha, who was the Princess’s Midgardian guard, and she was grateful for it. While Natasha would be useless if the Princess required the aid of Source and Dream, she was strong and powerful and had necessary insight into the complex workings of people and culture on Midgard, and Borghild would have been lost without her. She did, however, use the Midgardian magic to attack, and though Borghild understood it was considered necessary to keep up with the threat level, she could not condone it and refused the offers Natasha had kindly made to teach her how to utilize such magics known as firearms.

There were some lines one did not cross, even if all around you did.

And now she sat at table with her mistress and the flying man with whom the Prince was so very cordial. This, she supposed was diplomacy; when someone barges in and insults you, you must still be kind to them in return. If so, Prince Loki was born to this work.

Borghild was no diplomat.

She was a shieldmaiden and a sorceress with a mastery in healing, and it had always been her duty to protect. Already someone had tried to kill the Princess and her companion the Director, taking advantage of the Prince’s magical exhaustion to attempt the deed. Natasha had told her everything; how the Princess, untrained as yet as a shieldmaiden, bravely confronted him and subdued him and then later, while the Prince was still recovering, how she interrogated him and was able to glean much important information from him before sending him to be held in the dungeons of the Palace. There was another guard who assisted her, the Director’s warrior from Vanaheim, but it was unknown what part he played in the capture of the assassin.

And that was a strange thing, indeed. If he was from Vanaheim as Borghild herself was, he certainly didn’t act like it. And who would be so bold, so  _ rude  _ as to name their child after the All-Father’s  _ still living  _ firstborn? It was tantamount to asking for the early death of the first nameholder. Disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful. But in other ways the so-called Thor was confusing and vexing.

He had been the first to arrive. He had been present before even Natasha had been hired by her mistress, and Natasha joined the Ambassador’s family the first of anyone. Except the Imitator, who had apparently been given to the Director as a first gift of the All-Mother to aid and protect her newest ally. Apparently it happened directly after the wedding. It must have been that the All-Mother wanted protection for the Director while Borghild’s mistress and the Prince were travelling to another part of the realm.

And the Prince had taken a special liking to him, even though the Imitator’s work was quite separate and different from what the Prince had before him. But they ran every morning before the first rays of dawn broached the world, and every evening they trained together and the Imitator was nearly as skilled a warrior as the Prince himself.

And there were heavy magics laid about him by a sorceress powerful indeed. The Midgardian custom for men while training was that they be bare to the waist and so Borghild had seen quickly enough that the Imitator had two tokens of power on him, one slight and in the standard position for a location token, and one significant, and curling around his neck to nearly meet in the front. Borghild frankly had no idea what purpose the second token might serve, but it was lengthy and long, and so the purpose was complex, indeed. The signature color of the tokens was light green, but that wasn’t completely indicative, as many people had green as their signature color. Borghild herself did, and the self-same hue as the tokens borne by the Imitator. Indeed, behind blue, green was the most frequent signature color that sorceresses adopted, not that one could control it. It was the Prince’s color, too, and that was plainly evident from looking at his bare back. If one wasn’t aware that the second born of the All-Father was the most powerful sorcerer in the land, one casual glance at the tokens on his body, all in one unrelenting shade of green - his own - was enough to teach one otherwise. Well, except for his marriage token, which was bright blue, but no sorceress creates her own marriage token.

But the Imitator was no sorcerer. That was clear enough from his aura, but even so, she had observed more than once that each night after training Loki removed his language spell so that he, like the rest of the non-Midgardians, could spend his evening hours working on the tablets that were teaching them all English. It was Borghild’s duty to remove the language spell from each of the warriors and their families in the evening, and renew it each morning before the Princess emerged. She did wonder if that was a job that could be soon fobbed off on the apprentices, but tedious or not, she did it without complaint for everyone in the compound who was not raised on Midgard - except for the Prince and the Imitator.

Loki and ... _ Thor _ .

It was ironic, really. But the Prince seemed not to hold it against the Vanir, so perhaps Borghild should follow in his footsteps. Perhaps.

The Imitator was not at breakfast today, but that was not unusual. He ate when his mistress ate and with the apprentices coming today, the Director and her assistants undoubtedly came early to table.

Borghild herself usually took a seat somewhere down in the rounds, leaving the head table and its wings to those who wished to converse with Their Highnesses and the Director, and any special guests, but today by mutual and silent assent, both Natasha and Borghild took places seemingly at random at the head table. So, too, did the Prince’s Midgardian guard, Clint, called Rooftop, the husband of Natasha.

The only thing Natasha did have a chance to tell Borghild about the flying warrior who so insulted the Prince was that he was  _ probably  _ harmless.

_ Probably  _ harmless.

That was the same as saying  _ possibly  _ harmful.

And so Borghild ate quietly and quickly, listening intently to the conversation between the Prince and the Insulting One, trying the best she could to glean some measure of the man who was in their presence. She failed, utterly. His conversation was entirely at odds with any understanding Borghild might have drawn.

“So why are you here? And why did you steal my bad assed secretary?”

The Prince laughed and answered congenially, as if it were one of his best friends asking after his health. “Mrs. Romanov has graciously accepted an offer of employment, and we are grateful to have her on our staff.”

If the Prince meant to say anymore, he had no opportunity to do so.

“Wait, hold on. Mrs? You tied the knot, Romanov? And you didn’t even send me an invitation? I’m hurt! Who’s the lucky man? Or woman. I don’t judge. And that’s really hot. Actually, I hope it’s a woman. I could see it. And I’d like to.”

Clint, the shieldmaiden’s husband cleared his throat and gave an arch look to the flying warrior. 

“Oh, damn. Wait, him? Really? I wouldn’t think he’s your type.”

“My type is Not You, Mr. Stark,” the shieldmaiden Natasha responded before drinking some tea.

“That hurts. Still. I’m sending you a present. Something you’ll really need. Peacocks. Or something. Polar bears? No, that’s Christmas and Coca Cola. Red Pandas. Nothing says ‘my condolences’ like sending an endangered species.”

“Did you want to start a zoo, Your Highness?” the shieldmaiden asked the Prince dryly. He only laughed and shook his head. “Please don’t,” she responded to the foreign warrior.

“Ugh. You’re really harshing my mellow, Social Climber. Ooo, is that kale?”

Breakfast was served and the warrior proceeded to drink the entire contents of the pitcher meant for the Princess and the Director, though of course latter wasn’t present to object. The Princess kept her own council, and it was difficult after so brief a connection for Borghild to know her mistress’s mind on the subject. Doubtless she was remaining as kind and compassionate as always, and possibly thinking of something else entirely. Perhaps the antics of the Brazen One were normal, everyday occurrences for her.

“So. Brit Pick. What’s up with the accent? You made it clear you’re not from the Mother Country.”

“I learned to speak English two hundred years ago, in London.”

“Huh. What about them? Everybody else here speaks English, too?”

“No, indeed. They speak the Common Tongue of our galaxy - common everywhere but here -” the Prince said with a smile before continuing. “And tis but a translation spell that allows them to understand and be understood.”

“A spell? Like magic? I don’t buy it.”

And then the Prince shapeshifted quite jarringly into a perfectly copy of the flying warrior, and when he spoke it was with the same voice, the same quick cadence. “Don’t you, Boy Wonder? Are you sure? There’s a lot science can’t explain, and any doctor worth their salt will tell you they actually know shit about the way the brain works.”

The flying warrior blinked, silence blanketing the room. He slowly reached out to touch the face of the Prince which at present looked exactly like his own.

“How…”

“Magic.”

“But how did you know-”

“Magic.”

“That means nothing!” 

Borghild tensed as he shouted and almost reached for the nearest throwing dagger on her belt, but the conversation quickly flowed on and she saw the Foreign One calming as the Prince spoke.

“To you. But you are the only one in this room who is in the dark. You remain there only because you want to. Another time you should talk with Dr. Jane Foster, the Director of the Institute here. She has the envious job of working to reorganize and illuminate all scientific progress up until this point, in light of the progress the other inhabited planets of this galaxy have been making for the last two hundred thousand years.”

“Uh, why isn’t she here?” the flying warrior demanded. “And could you change back? That’s freaking me out.”

Instantly the Prince resumed his form, this time complete with armor, though without weapons, Borghild noted. 

“Dr. Foster is currently quite busy welcoming my new apprentices. Think of them as… post doctoral research fellows, in magic. That’s not quite exact, but close enough.”

“They’re not going to accidentally blow up the state, are they? I’m sure we need New Mexico. For some reason.”

More smiles and laughter from the Prince. “No indeed. I assure you they will be supervised.

“Huh.”

And all was silent for a while. People ate. Borghild could tell that Natasha and Clint were calm, but ready in case the flying warrior became suddenly quite foolish. 

After all were finished, the architects had the flying warrior sign his name upon the large scrolls they bore before he left with the Prince and Clint. 

Borghild breathed a sigh of relief and hoped the day would now return to normal.


	2. Wherein Loki forgets what it is to be a precocious teenager.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve apprentices are left alone for the majority of the day, and Darcy chokes on her evening tea.

_Idle hands are the devil’s workshop._

This was not a saying with which Loki was familiar, but the concept was.

Really, this entire thing was something Loki probably should have anticipated, but he hadn’t. Neither had Jane.

It was something Loki might have noticed, for they were saying his name _quite often._ But today was the day his presence was made known to the world. Hundreds of thousands of other people all across the globe were _also_ saying his name _quite often_ today.

In truth, it had been a long, long time since either Jane or Loki was a teenager. With absolutely nothing to do. In the presence of their ultimate idol. Who _needed_ their curiosity. And their questions.

Well, the apprentices were curious, alright. And Jane had told them they would never be penalized for asking questions.

So they had spent their morning, afternoon, and evening asking questions of everyone they could find.

All twelve of them.

They reconvened at dinner time, at which point, the damage was already done.

They couldn’t talk at dinner, that was quickly ascertained. They could only sit six to a round table anyway, so they all split up, sitting with warriors and their families, staff members, maintenance crews. Anywhere there was a free seat, an apprentice took it, and continued asking questions.

By nightfall, they knew everything worth knowing.

* * *

Darcy looked up from her dinner and took a quick survey of the room. There was more space they weren’t using, more tables they could set up, but the tables that were there were set at ten percent above capacity so that no group of people would be forced to split up to find a seat at dinner.

But that apparently wasn’t a problem, because while the warriors and different sections of staff seemed to clump together, the apprentices certainly didn’t.

“Kids look like their integrating easily,” she commented idly to her husband who was grinning while quietly shovelling in food.

“Oh, it’s much better than that,” he said after he had chewed and swallowed. And then he started eating again.

Darcy gave him a look. _Dude,_ she thought quite clearly at him, staring him in the eye as he ate. _Don’t just leave me hanging. Please explain that tantalizing comment you just made._

Loki smirked and kept eating. He spoke in the silence of her mind, however.

_“I’m not sure how I’d forgotten. I suppose I imagined that my level of precociousness - well, mine and Thor's - was unparalleled. Silly of me, really. But these children, whom we did choose on the basis of their curiosity and precociousness, are not much younger than I was when Thor and I were unleashed on Midgard and ended up being worshipped as gods for centuries. And I left them alone and unsupervised for the better part of the day. And didn’t think to warn Jane, either.”_

“Oh, fuck,” Darcy whispered. “Oh fuck. Okay, you're grinning, so it can’t actually be the end of the world. But you have a refined sense of humor, so it could be close to the apocalypse and you might still find it funny.”

_“Well, my darling, the good news is that they are ravenously curious about me and intensely curious about anything I’m interested in, so they - all twelve, mind - have limited themselves to wandering the Enclosure asking all of the questions they could think of to anyone who would stand still long enough. And apparently everyone in the Enclosure finds them universally sweet and adorable, even Mrs. Romanov, and has answered, without reservation, nearly every question asked.”_

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Darcy muttered, and then took a calming breath and pulled her mug of after dinner tea towards her.

_“They already know, or think they know, that Thor is in love with Jane.”_

Darcy choked on her tea.

What? _What?_ Thor was in love with Jane? When did that happen?

_“They believe that you are pregnant already.”_

Darcy continued coughing. On her other side, Natasha patted her firmly on the back.

_“And of course they have discovered that I am violently in love with you. Not that I’ve been attempting to hide it at all. And eight of the twelve alternate between being terrifically jealous of you and wanting to be exactly like you in every way.”_

Darcy nearly snorted her tea.

_“Then again, they know I’m a shapeshifter. They all twelve have spent some part of the day fantasizing about being just like me, and alternately being, shall we say, in your shoes?”_

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. _They’re my shoes and I’m not sharing._

Loki laughed. His mouth wasn’t full, so he responded aloud. “I wouldn’t wish it, darling.”

 _Do they know you’re a telepath?_ Darcy asked in her mind, figuring it was safe to take a sip of tea again. Possibly.

_“Oh yes. They just don’t think it applies to them. And admittedly, mischief aside, which they do not actually intend at this point, they do not much fall into my realm of awareness. They are not particularly deceitful, and there was absolutely nothing chaotic about today. Simple though it was, it was planned well and executed brilliantly. Truly, if they hadn’t been using my name in every other thought or sentence even now during dinner, I might not have noticed them at all. That is why nicknames are so often used on Asgard, by the way. We none of us have our attention piqued by a nickname, even a familiar one, the way we do when our given name is used. I shall tell them of this, eventually. Perhaps in ten years.”_

And, Darcy snorted her tea. Again.

* * *

They had an hour before they were required to be settled in their quarters, and another two hours before they must turn off all the lamps and be asleep. It was plenty of time.

They didn’t realize that by making their meeting after dinner they were also missing the viewing of their master’s nightly training session with the Dr. Foster’s assistant from Vanaheim, but they would discover their error soon enough and search for a different time to come together and exchange notes.

They gathered at one of the building sites, walking on thin railings and climbing up scaffolding until they could all perch on the top of what had been built thus far. None of them could remember what it was supposed to be, but that didn’t matter. It was now time to discuss what did matter.

“Let’s cover this by subject, alright? And if we get through all the ones I can think of and you’ve got more information, we’ll add it at the end, agreed?” the young man named Sigurd asked.

He met eleven eyes, and knew he had their assent.

“First, Master Loki. Everything you’ve discovered that hasn’t yet been mentioned. Be brief. We’ll go around the circle, starting with… Ragnhild,” he said, indicating the apprentice to his left, a young woman with long blond hair. She had proven herself to be outspoken, but thoughtful. Sigurd found her mildly annoying, but couldn’t disagree with the wisdom she brought to any conversation.

“Master Loki adores his wife, he’s overly fond of Dr. Foster’s assistant Thor, he’s a better warrior than all the warriors here, but they all respect him for his training regimen, and he’s covered head to foot in magical tokens.”

“Master Loki has been bound of his mastery over chaos and lying. He is a different man, but still a good sorcerer.”

“Master Loki has been bound of his mastery of mischief as well.”

“Master Loki has mastered all nine gates.”

“Master Loki has been secretly coming to Midgard for centuries.”

“Master Loki has been courting his wife for the last seventy years.”

“Master Loki has been turning into a cat and perching on the Vanir’s shoulder during meetings with Dr. Foster.”

“Master Loki and his wife sometimes have entire conversation with each other using only telepathy. So, if he’s laughing and you can’t see why, it’s because the Princess has been amusing him with her wit.”

“Master Loki wrote the original translation spell we use to speak Midgardian.”

“Master Loki is a terrible healer. No! I don’t mean it as an insult, that’s just what one of the warriors told me!” Hillevi, a young woman with darker hair cringed back as the others glared at her for her insensitive remark.

“It’s alright. Let’s continue,” Ragnhild offered. They were nearly around the circle.

“Master Loki is very, um, virile. Unusually so.”

A pause as all took this in, according to their own desires. Nanna, the only one of Alfheim among the twelve had a dreamy look on her face.

“Master Loki has a shockingly unique sense of humor that is often at odds with those around him. Except his wife,” Sigurd said, ending the circle. “Now let’s move on to the Princess Darcy. Ragnhild, will you begin again?”

“The Princess is kind, gentle, witty, and a very lucky Midgardian. She is a sorceress and a shieldmaiden, and she has mastered placement-of-things-in-space. She teleports regularly. She adores Master Loki, and she is beloved of the All-Mother.”

“The Princess has not yet finished her training in diplomacy, but that is what she has been trained in.”

“The Princess does not train in weapons or war, not that anyone else has seen.”

“The Princess likes to run, and I forgot to mention that Master Loki does as well, but they don’t run with each other. The Princess only runs a few miles, and does so in the afternoon before dinner. She runs with the Dr. Foster, her shieldmaiden Borghild, and her assistant, Natasha. Master Loki runs before the sun rises, with that Vanir, and his assistant, and whichever warriors care to join them. They run many more miles, the entire road all the way around the Embassy on the inside.”

“The Princess has only broken the first gate, and not yet mastered it. I know because I can see auras. And, about Master Loki… Well, I mean no offence, but he isn’t bound in any way, and he hasn’t mastered the ninth gate, not yet. But he has broken it. Which is shocking enough. I can’t tell when, but he’s definitely broken it.” With that, Halvard looked back at Fiske who sat next to him and shrugged. Fiske had been the one who brought the information that Master Loki had mastered all nine gates.

Fiske shrugged right back, taking no offence.

Ragnhild interrupted the circle. “I think this is a lesson to us. What we learn may be exaggerated, or presumed based on false knowledge or assumptions. Just because someone positively tells us something, I think we should hold such observations gently until one of us can provide truly telling evidence that the information is true. Let us henceforth mark such observations as personally verified by one of us, shall we not? And remark upon what evidence we have for such an assertion? But so saying, Fiske, you did well to take no offence.”

Fiske shrugged again.

“Let’s continue,” prompted Sigurd gently.

“The Princess is wildly intelligent. Master Loki himself has praised her intelligence in the midst of others, and has said that she amazes him.”

“The Princess is the mastermind behind the Embassy. It is she who is planning everything.”

“The Princess is actually Aesir.”

A thoughtful pause drew out after that comment, but no one spoke up to contradict it.

“The Princess fully welcomes Master Loki in all… um… of his… amorous moments.”

Another thoughtful pause drew out even longer, as each apprentice digested this small nugget as well, weighing it on the balance with other pieces of information that had been presented.

“The Princess grew up not far from where we are now. She is a blossoming desert flower, that is what Master Loki has said of her.”

“The Princess sleeps eight or nine hours a night! Sometimes ten.”

“The Princess subdued a deadly assassin entirely by herself! She interrogated him as well!”

Another moment of silence as each apprentice, perhaps, realized that in such a position, they most likely would _not_ have been able to handle such a feat.

“The Princess has two siblings, a man and a woman, and both of her parents and one of her grandparents is still living,” Sigurd said, ending the circle. “I think we have time for one more round. Let us reveal what we have learned about Dr. Foster. Ragnhild?”

“Dr. Foster is the All-Mother’s favorite scientist, she is a shieldmaiden and bore witness at Master Loki’s wedding ritual. She is very intelligent, and a very happy person.”

“I have heard that Dr. Foster is a sorceress, but that cannot be true, because she has already told us she is not. But at least one of the warriors believes she is.”

“Dr. Foster is in love with the Vanir that assists her.”

“I have heard that Dr. Foster is _not_ in love with the man called Thor, but that he is very deeply in love with _her_ , and that is why he allows her cat to ride on his shoulder. Apparently when the cat is awake, it is often on Thor’s shoulder. But perhaps it is Master Loki in disguise?”

“Dr. Foster spends all of her time reading things that are written down, and writing more things down. And causing others to write things down.”

There was a thoughtful pause as the apprentices tried to imagine why that would be necessary.

“Dr. Foster is very young to have received her mastery in her science. She must be very intelligent, indeed.”

“Dr. Foster and the Princess Darcy are great friends and they have known each other for many centuries.”

“Dr. Foster prefers to drink her vegetables. I’m not sure how, but that’s what a man on the maintenance crew told me.”

“I have heard that the Dr. Foster is but thirty-two years old.”

A stunned hush as everyone remembered that Midgardians did not live past their first century. And so the Dr. Foster and the Princess could not have been friends for centuries unless past lives were being considered.

“Dr. Foster is not just our supervisor. She is the head of the brand new Institute that Master Loki has founded. She is a very important person, and we are very lucky to be working with her, as well as with Master Loki.”

“Dr. Foster _argues_ with Master Loki. Warriors have seen them. But Master Loki always laughs afterwards, and they are said to also be great friends.”

“Dr. Foster’s assistant from Vanaheim is _actually_ the Prince Thor, only he has a geis on him to subdue him and make him unrecognizable, and he is serving at the pleasure of Master Loki, and _that’s_ why Dr. Foster is in love with him! She knows his true value, but they must keep their romance a secret from the All-Father, for surely he would not condone two Midgardian daughters for his sons. Though I forgot to say that I also heard that the Princess Darcy is much beloved of the All-Mother, who dotes on her and who has foreseen her! She knew the Princess Darcy would be the perfect wife for Master Loki, and that is why she permitted the marriage and allowed it to happen before the All-Father awakens. It is the opinion of everyone I spoke to that Princess Darcy brings much joy to Master Loki, and that they are very well matched, indeed,” Sigurd reported, ending that round.

After much quiet in which everyone was considering all the possibilities presented to them, Halvard spoke. His was a quiet, tentative voice.

“As I have said, I do see auras. I can report that Thor is old enough to be the right age to be the Prince in disguise, and while he is not full-blood Vanir, he does have Vanir blood in him, which would be right for the son of the All-Mother. Now that I consider it, Thor does not quite match Master Loki’s aura in that way. Master Loki seems to be full Aesir, but I could be confusing the reading of that, as all know Master Loki is a shapeshifter. The Princess Darcy, by the bye, seems aught but Midgardian to my senses, but I am not yet well acquainted with many. But all also know that Prince Thor is the Master of Thunder. This man who assists Dr. Foster is not a master of anything. He has some very slight magical ability, but he seems to be, in the main, a warrior who has the favor of our Master. Also, it is said that Prince Thor is never without the Mighty Mjolnir, the hammer of legend, but this Thor certainly does not carry such a weapon of power about with him.”

Sigurd looked around the rough circle to see how everyone was doing with this information. No one seemed offended, but many seemed confused. That made sense. There was little about their situation that was not confusing.

Ragnhild, who was growing on him, spoke up to Halvard. “These are wise observations, friend Halvard. Is there aught you have noticed that seemed to you odd or out of place?”

“Well, this goes deeply into personal territory, but I trust all present can be discreet?” Halvard waited until everyone met his eye, Sigurd noticed. “There is nothing out of the ordinary with the warriors, or so I noticed, and nothing with most everyone else. I believe that the Princess’s Midgardian assistant is somehow strange. I think she may be past her first century, but for a Midgardian that would mean she would be close to the grave, and this she does not seem. Of course, I could be misreading things, and so it is best not to ask her of it. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. The other odd thing is, and again I am not at all certain of this, but it is possible that the Princess is already pregnant with Master Loki’s firstborn. Or, I suppose, the one who will be his firstborn. It is unlikely, as it is rather soon, but she is Midgardian, and so perhaps that changes things from what we are used to.”

After a moment of silence, Halvard spoke up again.

“One more thing. I almost forgot. I apologize. The man, the warrior from Midgard who threatened Master Loki just after we arrived. He is dying. He’s not a well man. His aura is a sickly yellow and full of holes, and there is great darkness there, as well. He is dying, and he must know of it already. I’m not sure how one could have such an aura and not know it.”

After another moment, Halvard spoke again.

“One more thing. This is not irregular, but it may be helpful to know that the Princess’s shieldmaiden - I cannot recall her name - is also a healer. I have not noticed any other healers hereabouts yet. So this could be useful information in a crisis.”

Sigurd considered this information. He nodded slowly. “Friends. We must treat this knowledge, all of this knowledge, very carefully and be wary of spreading rumors. Particularly as concerns the man named Thor. If he is, somehow, the Prince and Master Loki’s brother, which would explain their familiarity, he is here for some secret purpose that our Master undoubtedly knows and agrees to, and may have orchestrated himself. We must honor the trust he has placed in us by inviting us to be his apprentices, and we must keep his confidences. Thus, it goes no further than this circle, it never does, until such time as Master Loki himself allows it.

“Thor, as Dr. Foster’s assistant and warrior is still above us, and he deserves our utmost respect and courtesy, as when he speaks, he speaks for Dr. Foster, and thus, for Master Loki.”

All in the circle met his eye, and Sigurd knew he had their agreement.

“Is there anything else of import that anyone can think of to add?”

No one met his eye.

“Then I suggest we sleep well and reconvene here at dawn, after our morning meditations. If I understand correctly, we should have at least an hour until breakfast at that point. In the meantime, please consider what we could spend our day doing, now that we have an initial grasp on the main players of this strange and beautiful drama in which we find ourselves.”

All eyes met his as he glanced around the rough circle. Once finished, the apprentices to the last one sprang lightly and gently down inclines, half finished walls, scaffolding and ladders until at last twelve thuds on the hard packed earth welcomed them back to ground level. They made their way, without words, to their individual quarters, each to sit in a bit of luxury they had not recently known - some having never experienced anything like such luxury as this - to read, to meditate, to wash, to sleep.

And perchance, to dream - an evening dream within the beautiful waking one that had become their lives.


	3. Wherein Loki goes running.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor go for their customary pre-dawn run. They’re running a four minute mile, not that it matters to anyone but other runners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weee! This chapter was a lot of fun to write. My husband couldn't stop laughing in the third scene, so I expect you may enjoy it. Thanks for following along, and thanks for all the love, and kudos, and reviews!

It was not unlike leading a hunt on foot, Loki mused.

It was dark, he and Thor were in the lead and running quickly, and they were trailed by various groups of people. If only they had actually been chasing something and bearing weapons, the image would be complete.

Rooftop was a few hundred feet back, but he would leave off his run by the fifth mile, circling back to his shower and his wife. Behind his somewhat frail human bodyguard-cum-assistant, there were three or four warriors running today, and they would last all twenty-six miles, the marathon loop around and through the Enclosure that Darcy had so wisely insisted upon. And newly added to their train, somewhat behind the warriors and apparently losing speed quickly, were all twelve of the apprentices. 

Loki idly wondered how many miles they would last before their stamina failed them. When he was their age, he was often embarrassed when he returned home for his harvest visit. Thor would and  _ did _ run circles around him.

When Loki at long last began his training in weapons, war, and diplomacy, he decided there and then that Thor would  _ never  _ be able to run circles around him again.

Really, running was the only part of physical training that Loki truly enjoyed.

It was with no small amount of inner glee, however he repressed it on the surface, that Loki discovered Thor’s stamina was somewhat compromised by his relative inactivity of late. With great restraint Loki refrained from running circles around him. He did consider it though. And it made him smile.

Still, it was the right thing to do, inviting him on the long morning runs Loki had decided to recommence now that he was settling into his routine here on Midgard. After two weeks of running in silence, they began to talk with one another. Two months in and they had quite a comfortable rapport growing between them, the likes of which they had not enjoyed since they were boys.

And so, when Thor started out with saying Loki’s name in  _ that  _ tone of voice, the one that meant he had something hard to say and was determined to say it, Loki was not entirely surprised.

“Loki,” he began, and then paused. “What must I do to regain the use of my magic overnight? Set me a goal and I will meet it, whatever it be.”

Loki slowly turned his head to look at his brother in the darkness as they ran. It didn’t help to increase his understanding of the situation. They could see the flat ground clearly enough by the light of the moon and stars, but all color and expression was drained from all that could be seen, including the usually quite expressive Thor.

“Why should I allow that? If you think you’ve learned your lessons, go speak with Mjolnir and get her judgment. I will abide by her decision.” Loki didn’t mean for it to come out harshly, but there was little other way to deliver such a judgment. Suddenly, Loki had much insight into his father that was not altogether welcome.

“I…” Thor faltered in his words, but Loki was patient. “I am not confident that I have, and I would not wish to bother her. I ask only because I wish to spend my nights in meditation. For no other reason.”

And Loki knew that it was true, because he knew his brother was not lying. And yet, it was hard to fathom.

Loki was aware that Thor had spent some time in meditation while he stood guard over him, but it was hard to imagine that he welcomed more of it.

“I see,” Loki responded, considering the matter. He wanted to be supportive, and yet the All-Mother was quite clear and explicit in her instructions. Also, this was Thor going against a millennium of habit. Then again, that was the point of this entire exercise. Perhaps Loki shouldn’t be so surprised to see the fruit of their labor in just a few short months?

Thor continued on, breaking into Loki’s thoughts. “When my magic was unbound, for those three weeks until you were fully well, I used every free moment I had meditating on my talent. I have learned so much already, and I finally understand what my tutors had meant all those years ago. I finally understood why you and Mother could find such solace and renewal in your meditations.”

To imagine Thor sitting regularly in meditation without making a great fuss was difficult enough. To imagine Thor craving and yearning and treasuring each moment that was offered was almost impossible.

“You meditated on thunder for three weeks straight?” Loki queried, now knowing the basic fact to be true, but doubting the completeness of it just on principle. 

“No, lightning.”

Loki blinked slowly in the darkness, unthinkingly picking up some of Darcy’s mannerisms. Well, of course. Thor channelled lightning often enough that he was known for it, sometimes even called it down from the clouds. Still, his mastery was technically understood as thunder, not lightning.

Then Loki thought further on the matter.

“But there were no clouds in those days, I don’t think. Not in that part of Texas. How did you manage that?”

“Midgardians channel lightning everywhere, brother. It’s all around us.  _ It’s in us _ . And if I am only to regain the use of my magic as a precursor to being sent back to Asgard, then I shall miss out on something very precious to me that can only be found on Midgard.”

“Midgardians channel lightning?” Loki echoed dumbly, feeling like the younger brother once more.

“Yes, and they have for the last hundred years. I’ve been reading the history of it. Jane has provided me with many books on the subject. It’s quite fascinating. They call it electricity, but it’s lightning sure enough. And it speaks. I believe it to be fateful. And with my magic bound I can hear murmurings only, but nothing specific. Even here with the solar and wind farm, generating it out of nature’s energy, I can hear but vague whispers. It is… well, it is maddening, to be honest.”

Electricity… of  _ course  _ it was the same thing as lightning. Loki had just never considered that as a particularly important piece of information. Except, of course, it would be to Thor.

“Well, in answer to your question, this task will I set before you: Learn English perfectly. Amaze me with your skill. Speak it fluently, write it perfectly, understand it exactly. When you feel you have, I’ll test you. If you amaze me with your skill, you may have your magic unbound until such time as I feel you have abused the privilege, at which point it will remain bound until you satisfy Mjolnir as to your progress on the whole.”

Thor gasped. “Do you mean that, brother? You would leave my magic unbound entirely?”

“Yes,” Loki said, in utter truthfulness.

Thor ran a bit ahead for just a moment, then did a jump and front flip with a crow of laughter, and then continued running as normal next to Loki.

“Thank you, brother! I will not let you down in any regard. I will learn as fast as I possibly can. To that end, please do remove my language spell just before dinner and renew it only just after breakfast. I will talk with Dr. Foster about getting an additional external battery or two for my tablet. I do run out quickly. But you will remove it after our run, will you not?”

“Of course,” Loki answered simply, his smile evident in his tone. “I see you are quite enthusiastic about this, brother mine. Tell me what it is like to meditate with electricity.”

And Loki listened to the story of his brother finally falling in love with his element, which was naturally perfect and could do no wrong. For so long he had simply used its brute force, but now, it seemed, he was beginning to understand it and there was a newborn respect for it, as well.

Loki smiled as his brother went on, and on.

_ This,  _ he thought to himself,  _ this is progress indeed. _

* * *

At the halfway point of their run Loki pulled two more apples out of his store, part of the fruit he had put in only just this morning, and just for this purpose. He flipped one to Thor, who necessarily needed to stop talking about lightning in order to eat. It also gave Loki a chance to digest what Thor had been saying.

At first, Loki had believed that his brother’s enthusiasm had led him to be perhaps a little over boastful about his subject matter. There were things, after all, that one could do with subjective truth that were not quite lies, and thus not really in his ken, but neither were such things objective truth, not that Loki could always tell at first blush.

Still, lightning sounded too good to be true. If Thor was to be believed, it was both sentient and…  _ enlightened.  _

The pun made him giggle around his apple.

Taking the opportunity while he could get a word in edgewise, Loki swallowed and spoke.

“And what of the Tesseract? Is it the same sort of substance as lightning? Could you speak with it as well?”

Thor, never one to stand on ceremony where talking and eating at the same time was concerned, at least, not outside of important dinners of state, happily spoke with his mouth full.

“That is a very interesting question, brother! You see the way of it, then. Well, in truth, the Tesseract does, in some respects, seem very much like lightning, but in other ways it is woefully different. First of all, we can converse, and you know I have never had the way of conversing easily with the large varieties of beings and intelligences that Father has had. And you, to some respects. So there is that. And yet, lightning is so effervescent! So joyful and unbounded in spirit. The Tesseract, alas, is no such thing.”

“Oh?” Loki asked, his curiosity piqued.

“No indeed. It is surly and perhaps even cruel. I liked it not at all. It also had a sense of self, which lightning does not have - even though it is obviously separate in this battery, in that generator, in the strike of lightning yesterday or tomorrow. Still, lightning, and all electricity I have encountered so far, has a very specific and agreed upon way of seeing itself, and that is of remarkable oneness. Even in saying so, I’m probably not doing it justice. There are no good words I can think of to properly express how it is. But the Tesseract does not seem to be this way. It is alone, cut off, and deeply unpleasant. I did not like to speak with it, and it did not like me being able to hear its discontented mutterings.”

A sinking feeling came over Loki as they ran. Had he been too late, after all? Should they evacuate the Embassy?

He reached out to the web of chaos and could see no immediate danger, but then, he might not be able to sense it.

“Thor, what did the Tesseract say?”

“Nothing to the point. I would not wish to disturb you with the details, brother.”

Loki clenched his eyes shut tightly for a brief moment before trying again.

“Thor. What did the Tesseract say?”

“Cruel and hateful things. About everyone. About no one. About me, once it realized I could understand it. But they were ravings. Truly, they made no sense. Do not concern yourself, brother.”

“Thor! What did the Tesseract say?!?”

“Brother, calm yourself. If you truly wish to know, I will tell you. You must understand that the language is no language, it is more like emotions that I experience as words. Mostly. That’s not exactly it, but the manner in which lightning communicates is simply different. Often, it speaks in litanies - just an emotion or word repeated at length.”

“Get on with it, Thor.”

“Fine, fine, but this impatience does not become you. So, before I made myself known to it, the Tesseract was muttering without apparent aim, as one might talk to oneself if one knew no one else were around. Well, if one were quite mad, and talking to oneself alone. The litanies were on the following topics: frustration, annoyance, intrusion, a general sort of hatred, fear, a desire for vengeance, perceived wrongs and slights, a sense of persecution and attack requiring defense.”

Loki’s mouth was dry. This was not good.

“Then I made myself known to it. This I did not do right away, you understand. I needed to ascertain my sister’s general safety, first, and the automobile in the midst of a stream of such conveyances was not just slightly unnerving. When I did make myself known to it, then it turned its vitriol on me. A similar series of litanies followed. Liar, usurper, interloper, uninvited, murder, death, kill, kill, kill.

“Then I tried to placate it. I told it I was present only to aid in assuring its isolation, away from all who would persecute it, away from frustration and annoyance, and so on, and so forth.

“It, perhaps not unsurprisingly, did not believe me. I do not think it helped my case that, as I mentioned before, I like everyone else has small amounts of lightning in our veins, and of course we were surrounded by lightning in other people, and in the automobile and then the aeroplane, and all of that lightning was simultaneously beckoning both myself and the Tesseract to cease believing in anything but joy and join in with its, or their, or if you prefer, the collective’s joy. Yes, come to think of it, the Tesseract seemed not to enjoy that at all.

“Anyway, I continued being as soothing as I could and it continued being as mutinous and friendly as a rabid fox.

“After my sister tossed the ungrateful wretch into the sea, I could still hear it for some time. We hovered for a bit, a matter of twenty minutes or so, and the progress of it was tracked. There was some question about whether or not it would sink properly and hit the mark, or if it would go astray with the currents. During this time, with no other life but that of the sea and no other sources or storages of lightning nearby, I could still hear it quite well, and it could still hear me.

“Its grumbling did not cease entirely. I would say it downgraded from mad and murderous to annoyed and surly. That was, I am sure, as close as it could get to saying thank you.”

Loki took a deep breath. If it was no longer thinking murderous thoughts, then they were as safe as they could be, as safe as they were yesterday, at any rate. The fact that he had a better sense of just how close the realm had been to annihilation was moot. The Tesseract was now safely out of convenient reach for Midgardians, and Thanos the Meddler was no longer seeking it.

Loki and Thor ran in silence into the dark and it was some long moments together before Loki realized that he could not possibly know the Meddler’s name, nor that he no longer sought it.

Could he?

* * *

Thor easily filled Loki’s silence, as easily as he had ever done. Given, however, that it was early morning and no mead had been taken the night before, he could not go on at length without noticing his companion’s quiet.

“What fills your mind, brother? I know it cannot be lightning, any more than I care to think about chaos or deceit for any length of time.”

“I…” his normally eloquent brother trailed off. “I am not sure,” he said, and Thor marveled that there was no smooth lie to cover up what was clearly both confusion and consternation on the younger man’s part. Then again, perhaps he was not the only one changing. Loki seemed to be quite a different man than the one Thor had last known.

“Surely you have some inkling.”

And then Thor could no longer hear the active if inarticulate murmurings of lightning all around him, only from their bodies. He glanced back, and yes, the warriors running behind them had stopped mid-stride.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to explain why you have appeared to stop time? I say nothing about your actual ability to do so. I shall ask about that at another convenient time, when you have no need of generating more of it,” Thor pointed out, in what he considered a very calm and reasonable manner.

“The Tesseract is in the center of a dire plot, and from what you’ve told me, this realm only just barely managed to escape certain annihilation. I knew it was a possibility, but honestly, I had no idea of the level of escalation of the situation in which I found myself. Well, we. I suppose we’re all in this at this point.”

“And this is what has you ruminating in a timeless hole? And should we not perhaps stop running? When you rejoin us with time, will not the warriors be alarmed?”

“Yes, of course,” Loki said, but kept running. Thor decided not to press the point.

“So. The Tesseract. Dire plot. Certain annihilation. What has you confused? Come. Talk it out with me and we shall see if the answer does not make herself known soon enough.”

“I think… I remember things that have not occurred.”

“Interesting. You’ve never shown signs of being a seer. Do you feel the pull of madness now that we are to discuss it?”

“No, not remotely. Nothing more than usual, that is.”

Thor’s own laughter caught himself off guard. “Ha! Your sense of humor returns! This is an excellent sign. When you have lost it, we are all doomed.”

Loki gave Thor a dark look that was not lost in the darkness of their continued run.

“It cannot be a dream I have remembered. Each night I wake and I take note of my dreams, in case any prove useful. And I have never forgotten a dream I have taken note of…”

Loki trailed off, his tone full of uncertainty, and Thor wondered at his diligence. He dreamed nightly, too, of course. Everyone did. And his dreams were full of beauties and horrors, both, but he never took any of them seriously. Why would he? They were just dreams, just fancies of the mind at rest, were they not?

“Except when I’m exhausted,” Loki added with grim decisiveness.

“How many times  _ have  _ you exhausted yourself magically, brother?” Thor asked, incredulous. Surely he could not have done this more than once or twice. Wouldn’t Thor have noticed?

“Only eleven or twelve times,” Loki responded absently.

“You jest,” Thor stated baldly.

“Hm? Well, it’s a conservative estimate. The question is, what did I dream, how much did I dream, and how much of what I’ve forgotten is important. That is the question.”

“That is three questions, actually. But important ones, I’ll agree. Is there aught you can do to aid your recall of them?”

Loki shook his head. “No. The best I can do is be alert. When a memory returns, however tenuously, I can sometimes trace back and get a fuller picture of what the dream entailed. Perhaps not all of it, but perhaps enough.”

“And is that what you have done?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you are afraid that you are being watched, somehow? And so you pulled us out of time to discuss it?”

“As you say. There is an unpleasant intelligence angling to interfere with the Tesseract. And I think it may have come to me in a dream. I think I debated it,” Loki ended, dreamily.

“It no doubt lost, then,” Thor said, firm in his knowledge of his brother’s ability to debate anyone into the ground.

“I think I bargained with it,” Loki said in a tone of soft wonder.

“I’m starting not to like this, Loki.”

“I  _ think _ I promised to solve its original problem for it,” Loki said, his voice continuing to be soft and dreamy and very far away.

“I’m certain I don’t like this, Loki.”

“No, no, I was perfectly confident in the dream. I think.” Loki was definitely in a world of his own that no longer included reality as anyone else understood it.

“Loki, this is not good.”

“The only problem, really, is that I can’t remember what its original problem was. Or my solution.” Loki spoke of this as if he could not remember what he had for breakfast.

“Oh, Loki. What will Mother say? What will Father say when he wakes?”

Loki gave Thor another hard look. “They need never know. We both know I have a fate to meet. I doubt very highly that this figures into that. Therefore, whatever happens, I will likely  _ not  _ die because of this, and therefore will be successful. If I am successful, this will be but a passing adventure, and not my first on Midgard. Nothing to bother our parents with, thank you for inquiring.”

“By the Nine, Loki! Is  _ this _ how you’ve been living your life? What tales you have to tell!”

“I did not live them in order to tell them. I lived them because they were before me and could not be avoided. Now, to the point. Talk of the Tesseract brought this memory back, at least in part, and talk of the Tesseract may finish the job. Tell me more. Tell me every little detail you hardly noticed. Walk me through the entirety of it, as if I were sketching it scene for scene to illustrate a history.”

Thor did not have to ask if his brother was serious. It was clear, and Thor did his best.

He spoke of when the man named Furious first brought the Tesseract to the hostel. He spoke of his sister, and of the wonderful Dr. Foster who had managed to solve their problems. Thor gave his impressions of all involved. Furious, living up to his namesake. His sister, showing her mettle again and again. Dr. Foster, so helpful, so kind, so strangely amusing. He spoke of the introduction of Mrs. Romanov to the group, and Thor was not at all abashed that such a fine shieldmaiden as she had compromised him so quickly.

Thor spoke of the car ride, so quiet, except for the bliss of the lightning and the killjoy of the Tesseract, and when he described the interior of the flying aeroplane, which was actually quite interesting and used quite a stunning amount of lightning to power, much more so than birds, even large ones, that is when Loki bid him to silence.

“And you did not speak much,” Loki said.

“No, brother. I did not think it wise. I was hoping at that point only to assuage the Tesseract and be on hand should my sister need my aid.”

“And Darcy and Fury spoke at length. Debating. Arguing. She never won, but was not daunted.”

“Yes, brother. How did you know?”

“And the metal briefcase in which the Tesseract was housed, that sat at her feet the entire time, yes?”

“Yes, has the Princess already told you this part?”

“No. I remember. I dreamed it. Or, I was there, in spirit, in the dream. I’m not sure. There were things I saw that may not have happened. At no point did the three of you begin an orgy?”

“Never. I swear it.” Thor looked at his brother, but he seemed calm. There was no hint of the maddening rage he once bore when confronted with any such similar idea.

“I thought not. And at no point did the conveyance and everything within it become entirely translucent?”

“Not that I noticed, no.”

“Interesting. Did you notice my presence? Or a little old sorceress? Or a misshapen purple doll grotesque?”

“I am certain I did not. Nor did I hear the lightning in you or any of the others you describe. There was naught but myself, my sister, Furious, and the pilot and pilot’s assistant, who were at the wheel, navigating. If you or the others were there, you were not there in any of the standard senses.”

After a time of silence, Thor broke it.

“Do you remember yet?”

“I could not remember the four axioms of illusions. And then Mistress Oydis appeared, and told me. I think. Or something like that. And then I put a halt to the orgy, which wasn’t really happening, and saw through the lies. And pulled the doll from my chest. And then we sparred with words. And it threatened to end Yggdrasil, which I found particularly amusing, as that is my job, and that’s when I remembered… or was it? Was it before? No, the order matters not. And I remembered the stories about it, and realized that, like anyone stuck ten thousand lifetimes from the end, it was taking entirely wrong-headed measures to get what it wanted, and I offered to help, on the condition that it leave the Tesseract alone. I think it agreed, and gave me ten years before it came and laid waste to Yggdrasil. Again, an amusing thought. Of course, ten of which realms years? I didn’t think to ask. Wasn’t quite the moment, you know?”

“Loki,” Thor began, speaking slowly and clearly, as one would to a recalcitrant child, or a quite senile elder. “Do you remember how you were going to help?”

“Oh, yes. And before you ask, no, you cannot help. I’m afraid no one can, though I’ll need you to guard Darcy while I’m gone. Well, metaphorically speaking.”

“Loki,” Thor began again, speaking even more slowly and clearly. “Speak plainly before you drive me mad.”

“He cannot die. I promised to have him killed.”

“ _ What?”  _ There was no part of Loki’s answer that made sense in Thor’s brain, nor, Thor reasoned, in anyone’s brain, should anyone else have heard of such a statement.

“It is Thanos, the Undying. You know the legend-”

“ **_What?_ ** ”

“Oh, good, you do know the legend-”

“ **_Thanos the Realm Killer? Thanos the Slayer of World Trees? Thanos who bathes in the blood of his enemies to be more alluring to his lover?_ ** ”

Thor was so upset it would take him sometime to realize he had started sprinting. Loki just kept pace with him.

“You know that last part is the problem, of course. She won’t have him, and he’s going about it in the wrong way. He needs to master the Ninth Gate to impress her, and he is at least ten thousand lifetimes away from doing that, and as he had a geis on him, death won’t have him even once, to say nothing of the ten thousand times. So I agreed to negotiate with death and make him killable.”

“You did not. Say you did not. Loki,  **_this is madness._ ** ”

“Quite the contrary, brother, it’s one of my better ideas, really.”

“ **_Loki! Do you not see it? This IS Ragnarok! This is THE END. Thanos will slay Yggdrasil once he has the Tesseract, agreement or no agreement! This IS Ragnarok and you have brought it about too soon!_ ** ”

“Thor, calm yourself. Really. He can’t kill Yggdrasil. You know perfectly well that is actually my job and I won’t subcontract. My, you are running fast today,” Loki pointed out calmly, before returning to the subject at hand. 

Thor felt no urge to slow. 

“And that is many thousands of years into the future, I assure you. I’m not quite enlightened yet, and I’m only just married. I have things to do, first. I promise you that if we are still on speaking terms I shall alert you beforehand. No, no, all I need do is make him mortal again. I am absolutely certain that he puts himself in mortal danger on an hourly basis. One only need convince the Queen of Death to kick him back into the cycle of rebirth, and he will get along with whatever his destiny is - which is not Ragnarok, thank you very much - and we can get along with ours.”

Thor was speechless. He wasn’t sure if it was his brother’s casual reference to the scarring fate that had so wounded him, or speaking of personally bringing down the known Universe’s most well-known and thoroughly-feared warlord. Perhaps it was the territorial way in which he claimed Yggdrasil’s death for his own. No, it was definitely his confidence in having a successful negotiation with an entity Thor was not entirely certain actually existed.

“No, there are only two questions in my mind. How long do I actually have, and how am I going to tell Darcy?”

“As to the former,” Thor responded without thinking too much about it. “The shortest year in Yggdrasil is on Jotunheim. Something like one-third the Common Year, isn’t it? And as to the latter, good luck.”


	4. Wherein Darcy dresses warmly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much occurs, and some of the author’s head canon, which is definitely at odds with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leaks forward into the fanfic...

Darcy got up at the knock on the outer door, leaving her mug of tea on the low table in the meditation space.

When she opened the door, she was not actually surprised to see Natasha standing there, dressed informally, but more normally than Darcy was.

Desperate for warm clothes, at least to lounge in at 5 AM when she couldn’t sleep and Loki was out running with Thor, she took to her trunk-token-bag and did what amounted to a Google search for warm clothes.

Frigga had not let her down.

There was wool. There were down blankets. There were fur coats. And fur blankets. There were leather boots lined in fur. There were tubular things of various size that she wasn’t sure where to put. Some were wooly. Some were furry. There were things that might have been wide scarves or long wraps, or just really oddly shaped blankets.

Darcy currently had on a t-shirt, a pair of yoga pants, the pair of brown leather boots lined in fur that went almost to her knee, and a wool hat she had knitted two years ago, because sometimes it snowed in D.C.. She’d left the calf-length fur coat and the fur lap blankets on the pillows she had been sitting on, because she didn’t want to go to the door looking like a complete freak.

Darcy now regretted leaving off the jacket, and was suddenly cold again.

“Hi,” she said to her body guarding assistant.

“Hey. Saw your light was on. You okay?”

Darcy nodded, and moved back away from the door to allow the older woman to come inside. “Want some tea? Or was this a drive-by check-in?”

“I’d love some tea, thank you.”

Darcy ambled to the beverage station that hosted a Keurig, an electric kettle, a selection of ten teas and four coffees, a tin of cookies, a tin of crackers, a bowl of fruit, a mini fridge that had half and half and four fresh bottles of vegetable juice, and a free-standing five-gallon water cooler. She turned the kettle back on and got Natasha’s preference for tea.

“Couldn’t sleep?” the former assassin asked.

Darcy shook her head. “Last couple of days. Loki doesn’t wake me up when he goes, but without fail, fifteen minutes after he’s gone I’m uncomfortably awake and kind of restless.”

“If this keeps up, you should consider a nap in the afternoon. You do need to sleep, after all.”

“I know. But there’s just so much to do…”

“There’s always going to be so much to do, Darcy,” Natasha said, having thoroughly lost the battle of what to call her employer. “You have to take care of yourself and get what you need, when you need it.”

Darcy wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered a bit, and was relieved when the water, already quite hot, reach a boil quickly. She hustled the tea over to Natasha and snagged a little bowl to put the leftover tea bag in.

Hospitality done, Darcy gratefully wrapped the long leather and fur coat around herself and did up the buttons from the throat half way down. When she sat down, she grabbed one of the pretty fur lap blankets and plopped it over her legs, offering one of the remaining ones to Natasha.

The redhead took the offering putting it on her lap and stroking the fur.

“It’s lovely. Do you know what kind it is?” she asked, looking still at the blanket.

Darcy shrugged. “No idea. They’re actually Loki’s. I haven’t asked him about them yet, but I suppose I will eventually.” There was a lot on that list. It was the ‘things I think of once or twice and wonder about, and will eventually ask Loki, at some point’ list. She hadn’t actually written up that list. Yet. She might. But there were, conservatively, eight or nine hundred things on it.

Darcy’s blanket was pure white, and Natasha’s was white with blue irregular stripes, like some kind of long-haired arctic zebra or something. There was a third blanket nearby and it was white with creamy smudges on it. They were all beautiful, and warmer than anything Darcy had ever experienced before.

“The Aesir have a lower ambient body temperature, don’t they?” Natasha asked, nonchalantly.

Darcy was caught off guard and forgot to play it cool, as it were. Her eyes shifted to Natasha and narrowed slightly before she remembered that her assassin was wicked observant, but probably hadn’t yet figured out that Loki was a giant icicle on the inside.

“It’s possible,” she hedged. “Man doesn’t describe the temperature outside based on a fixed scale, so I know they don’t do that for body temperature. And I haven’t stuck a thermometer under his tongue, though I might after this.”

“Have you taken your own temperature lately?” Natasha asked, again with great nonchalance, which Darcy now found suspicious.

“No,” Darcy said, drawing the word out and filling it with unspecified accusation. Because where exactly was she going with this?

“Your appetite has been off, lately. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, Natasha,” Darcy answered, not actually wanting to talk about the intermittent nausea, or, really, anything having to do with a toilet, with her assassin. It’s possible that she wasn’t super convincing in her answer, though, given the look on the other woman’s face. “Would you just cut to the chase, please?” Darcy asked.

“I think you might be pregnant.”

“Oh, Lord. Not you, too,” Darcy said, rolling her eyes.

“What makes you so sure you’re not?” Natasha asked calmly, her fingers wrapped around her bright blue mug of tea.

“Loki said it would probably be pretty difficult to get pregnant and it would probably take us awhile.”

“Do you know if he was referencing other Aesir-Human matches, or Aesir-Aesir matches?”

“Probably not the mixed ones,” Darcy said, uncertain if there was historical evidence of a Jotunn and a Human ever successfully mating, come to think of it. She certainly hadn’t happened upon it in her reading, not that there was a book devoted to just that sort of thing. Not that she had found yet, anyway. It’s not like any of the books, even the reference ones, had indexes. It wasn’t like there was a cross-referenced library catalog. Or a keyword searchable library database.

_Yet_.

And Darcy made a mental note to add a librarian to her staff.

Natasha continued on, regardless of Darcy’s organizational musings. “Then it could be in Aesir-Aesir matches that it’s the woman who is less fertile and the man more so. If that’s the case, then there would always be a low birth rate among the Aesir, until an Aesir man has a relationship with a Human woman, and then, bam, high birth rate. Either way, have you considered consulting with one of their doctors, or maybe a midwife who has experience in cross-species births?”

Darcy sighed. “I was going to wait until the clinic was built and staffed, honestly. But maybe I shouldn’t.”

“I think you shouldn’t. Even if you’re not very nauseous now, the temperature thing could be an indicator. And if you’re carrying a child that’s half you and half the Prince, you need to be under medical supervision to make sure you have a safe pregnancy.”

The word ‘safe’ rung in Darcy’s ears. Of course. _Of course._ Of _course_ that was why Natasha was particularly concerned and rather nosey.

Darcy’s safety was Natasha’s job.

“I’ll make an appointment today,” she conceded. “Or whatever the Asgardian equivalent is.”

_And I’ll talk with Loki about this, and about telling you about this whole I-Married-A-Popsicle thing._

For reasons that Darcy wasn’t completely clear about, she felt comfortable enough with Natasha now, and she really wanted someone else to talk to about the issue. She knew she needed to wait and discuss it with Loki first, but just at the moment, Darcy had the strongest urge to just tell Natasha everything.

Perhaps it was just the issue of keeping secrets in general. Darcy had never been particularly good at it, and couldn’t see the point. To her mind, it only ever made matters worse.

And then Darcy realized that she didn’t have to keep this a secret, at least, not in that way that felt like lying. She remembered what Loki had said, that sometimes there would be things she would ask about that he simply couldn’t give her answers for.

Darcy bit her lip and wondered how to even say this.

_Well, fuck it. Just say it._

“So, there are, let’s call them mitigating factors… There are _mitigating factors_ that I can’t mention at this point, and I’d like to. But I need to get Loki’s permission first, because it’s intensely private and personal information. And I… yeah.” Darcy sighed and started to worry that a diplomatic life was not going to work out for her after all.

They shared some silence then, sipped tea, and Darcy tried not to think about the fact that her having a small lump of nearly-frozen cells in her uterus might explain her current temperature issue much better than buildings being over-air-conditioned, and the fact that she could only discuss it with Loki. Determined to change the subject, at least in her mind, Darcy looked to the woman across from her.

“Did you ever get pregnant?” As an assassin, the answer was probably no, but any conversational segue would do.

Natasha shook her head. She looked off into the distance with the mug of tea held just below her nose. “I can’t have children,” she said softly.

“Oh. Sorry,” Darcy said, wondering how it was she could manage to stick her foot in her mouth so frequently.

Natasha shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not a big deal,” she said in the same soft voice that made Darcy wonder if it was, in fact, a very big deal indeed, or had been at one time. “I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it.”

A thought occurred to Darcy, but she debated whether or not to say it.

_Ah, fuck it._

“It must have happened when you were very young, because you’re not that old, now. Was it an accident?”

Natasha, now deeply looking elsewhere, and probably not at the tapestry on the wall, responded in that same faraway voice. “No, it was no accident.” In an even smaller voice, she continued. “I was in a training program. When I was a teenager. A sort of… elite assassin’s school. The graduation present was a hysterectomy.”

“Laparoscopic?” Darcy asked, knowing that one kind was a tiny incision and a quick recovery and the other was a huge slice into your abs and took ages to fully recover from.

Natasha snorted delicately. “No. This was well before that technology became popular.”

Then Darcy did some math. Her mother had needed a hysterectomy ten years ago, and it had been done laparoscopically. And ten years ago, Natasha Romanov would have been about fifteen.

But then Darcy doubted her math, so she double checked. No, no, her mother totally had the surgery nine or ten years ago.

“Not that it’s any of my business, really, so you can just tell me to go to hell and that’s cool, but how old are you really, Natasha?”

The not-twenty-five year old former assassin sighed and took a sip of tea. “I was planning on telling you eventually. It’s a relief, really, to finally work for someone older than me. I mean Loki, obviously,” she said as an aside, but still didn’t meet Darcy’s eyes. “And to finally work for someone who will outlive me, even if I die naturally. Not that I have a good sense of what my life span will actually be.” She glanced over at Darcy finally and gave a weary sigh. “They used experimental drugs. There were a lot of side effects, some of them rather long-lasting.” Perhaps at Darcy’s horrified expression, she elaborated. “They, like everyone else, were racing to find a super soldier serum. They, like most everyone else, did not entirely succeed.”

“Not entirely?” Darcy asked, shifting slightly to wake up her legs.

“Well, I am ninety-five, and I heal rather quickly. And I don’t morph into some kind of crazy Mr. Hyde figure when I’m angry. And I seemed to stop aging at about twenty-three. I have no idea how long this will continue, or if it will ever stop.” Natasha shrugged. “And I’m tired already. I don’t know how Loki does it.”

“He makes his own fun,” Darcy dryly quipped. Then she paused and really thought about it. And thought about how far she and Natasha had come in the last three months that they could even have this sort of conversation now.

“I don’t know many aliens who live stupidly long lives, but I can say two things about my husband. He has a really clear sense about what he’s supposed to be doing in the world, and he’s really close to, like, Buddha-level enlightenment. I’m totally planning on joining him as soon as I figure my own shit out. But anyway, I think that helps wile away the dull hours. When you’re ready, I’m sure he would talk to you about it.”

Natasha nodded, but said nothing.

“And about the other thing. Aesir medical technology is way ahead of the curve. It’s one of the many things Jane hopes we’ll be able to replicate in time here on Earth, but in the meantime, you and Clint should get a check up. Loki and I are due to go and run me through the Billionaire’s Itinerary because my mother-in-law is horrified that the first time I might see some of this stuff is with strangers, and the first dozen are happening in… gosh, three weeks.”

“Three and a half. And I wouldn’t mind getting that check up, uterus or no uterus.” She paused before speaking again. “And if they could help Clint, I’d be really grateful.”

Tumblers clicked in Darcy’s brain.

“New plan. Because you’re helping me organize this anyway. You and me and Loki and Clint are going to do the Billionaire’s Itinerary together. So we’d best figure this out sooner rather than later. We can do the entire thing and take plenty of notes and pictures. And see if any of my assumptions based on Loki’s stories are just way off base. And that will include a stop in the medical spa for everybody. So I’ll consult with an Aesir OB/GYN today, and have my follow up this weekend when I’m there anyway. And in the meantime, I’m just going to be wearing wool in the desert. And that will have to be okay.”

Natasha nodded in agreement and the swank trailer was quiet for a long while.

“Shit,” Darcy began, resignation in her voice. “I’m probably pregnant, aren’t I?”

“Probably,” Natasha agreed.

“Well. Well. Okay. Yeah.” Darcy trailed off into silence that was broken by the sound of the door handle rattling slightly.

Darcy watched as Natasha _rolled_ over the pillows and landed in a low crouch behind the door. She had pulled a gun. From whence she’d pulled it, Darcy wasn’t super clear. Darcy also wasn’t super clear what happened to Natasha’s cup of tea, and if she had been finished with it.

“You’re up early, darling,” Darcy could hear as the door opened. There was Loki, sweaty and beautiful, and there was Natasha, coming up from her crouch and holstering her gun back wherever the hell she hid it behind her to begin with. He glanced over once he cleared the door, striding into the small room. “All is well, Mrs. Romanov?”

“Just peachy, Your Highness.” She glanced over at Darcy. “Thanks for the tea. See you at breakfast.”

Darcy nodded as Natasha slipped out and shut the door behind her.

“Are you well, darling?” Loki asked as he happily flopped on a pile of pillows next to her, rolling up one of the fur lap blankets and tucking it under his head.

“Mmm. More or less. I think I might be pregnant.”

Loki sat up quickly, his eyes searching her body as if he could, just by looking, see a blastocyst growing somewhere underneath her lungs.

“Are you certain?” he asked, idiotically.

“Of course I’m not certain. How on earth could I possibly be certain? Why would you even ask that question? You usually don’t ask stupid questions, and you usually come back from your run about twenty five minutes from now. So what’s up with _you_?”

“I… yes, well, that. Thor _was_ sprinting part of the time, but I shall tell you all in due course. Let us discuss this first. Why do you suspect you are pregnant?”

“My period is way late. Like so late I totally forgot about it. And then there’s the morning sickness. And also I’m freezing my ass off. As if, perhaps, I had something very, very cold growing inside of me, stealing all of my body heat. Which I would like to discuss with you, at length, momentarily. But first, I’m requesting a midwife or someone like that to come down and talk to me today, and I need to be able to speak freely about your heritage, or the conversation will be entirely moot.”

Loki nodded. “Of course, darling. Would you prefer if I be present or absent for this conversation? What is the standard on Earth for such things?”

“It varies. What is the standard on Asgard?”

“Men are not involved in such things, but that matters not to me, if you would wish me to be present.”

“I do,” Darcy said, with some relief. “I really don’t want to feel like I’m doing this alone.”

Loki shifted gracefully to kneel beside her. He laid a hand on her knee, on top of the snow white fur. “And I would not wish you to feel that way. Or to _be_ that way.”

“Okay. I’ll send a message to Frigga to recommend someone, then. And this weekend, we really ought to do the trial run of the Billionaire Itinerary. I want to take Natasha and Clint with us for a variety of administrative reasons, and because I did promise access to the Asgardian healthcare system when Natasha was hired. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I mentioned that to you before. But I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Loki shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“And, this is probably for another conversation at another, albeit soon, time, but we, or possibly just you, or some combination of you, me, and Frigga, need to really think about how and when and where you’re going to go public about the rest of your heritage. Because if I am cold because I am pregnant, then it is very likely our child is going to really look like you more than me. And he or she may _not_ be a shapeshifter. You get me?”

Loki sat back on his heels, and if his unguarded expression was any indicator, he was stunned. Darcy waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“You still with me?” she asked gently.

His words came out hesitantly. “I… thought…” A much longer pause followed. “I… would have… more time…”

Darcy picked up his hand. She wasn’t sure if he meant more time just the two of them before a child presented his or herself onto the scene, or more time to get used to knowing his heritage before having to bear the scrutiny of everyone else knowing his heritage. Probably the latter. That was the bigger one.

“No matter what, the wider world doesn’t have to know until the birth. But the people close to us, if I _am_ in fact pregnant and it _is_ our child inside of me that’s making like an icecube, well, some of them will _have_ to know. And I want them to know. And Odin would have known that he’d have to tell you and everyone else at some point. And I know this is really your secret, but I’m probably bearing your rather chilly child and so that makes it my secret, too. And, babe, I really fucking hate secrets.”

Loki bowed his head, bending in half and all but resting it in Darcy’s lap. Without thinking her free hand rose and scritched at his head, running her fingers through his once-short hair that had been growing like a weed.

“Have I failed you so quickly?” he asked in a broken whisper.

_Oh, shit,_ Darcy thought, and wondered where in her words she had gotten too harsh. She had obviously tipped him over into highly-emotional-and-guilt-ridden-Loki mode, which she hadn’t seen in months, not since they first met.

“You haven’t failed me,” she replied calmly. “I love you, and you haven’t failed me. We just live complicated lives. I knew that privacy and discretion and diplomacy and keeping confidences were all part of the package. I knew that and I accepted that. I’m just better at some parts of it than others, I guess. I’m sorry I was too harsh.”

Loki remained bowed over her lap, and she couldn’t tell if she’d helped or just made it worse.

“You are too kind,” he said, the tone of his voice still speaking of so much more angst than his brief words could convey alone.

“No, actually, I’m not. You knew exactly how homicidal I got at breakfast yesterday,” she pointed out, not minding at all changing the subject and maybe adding a little levity to the moment. “I mean, sure, it’s a great story, ‘And then I fantasized about stabbing Tony Stark with a fork.’ But joking aside, and maybe you couldn’t get this just through my thoughts, but there was more than one moment that I’m kind of disgusted by that I actually wanted to do him harm. Actually. As if I was some kind of insane woman who could really be incited to violence just because someone insulted her husband. Borghild mentioned something about breakfast later on yesterday, and I had to admit that I hadn’t paid attention to a damn thing that happened because I was too busy trying to meditate through my violent rage to notice anything else. Shocked the hell out of her, I can tell you.”

Darcy paused, realizing that she might have changed the subject, but she probably failed at levity.

“But the point, Loki, is that I’m not a too kind person. I just love you. And sometimes I say the wrong things when I want to prove my point.”

It was a shocking moment when Darcy realized that she got that from her father, but her father’s interpretation would have been different. _If you can turn the tables on your opponent and make them see their own error, they’ll feel guilty. Or defensive. Either way you look better to the jury._

“No, you _are_ too kind. And I _have_ failed you. I have asked you to hold for too long a secret that has become a burden for you, and only because I myself was reluctant to continue the inner work that is necessary to bring this secret to light. And for me to have done this to _you_ , who finds deceit particularly burdensome... I have added to your pain instead of lightened it, and all because I was selfish and distracted. Forgive my selfishness and my distraction. I will be more vigilant in the future.”

Darcy sighed. She probably wasn’t going to be able to convince him that this wasn’t a big deal to her, just because it was a big deal to him. And truly, she didn’t want to this be a secret for too much longer.

“The Romanovs we can tell this weekend, or sooner if you prefer,” he said. “It is only right that we allow Borghild and Dagmar an opportunity to consider well their reaction and whether they wish to continue in our service.” Loki took a deep breath and ended it on a sigh. Darcy wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but she knew he didn’t have to be the one doing all the talking.

“I’ll handle Borghild and Dagmar, and I’ll give them that opportunity. I’d also like to tell my family.”

Loki looked up, then, rising from his abject misery.

“Of course. Would you like me to be present?”

Darcy shook her head. “Babe, you need to deal with this stuff inside your own noggin. I can handle talking to my family and my staff, such as they are. If Aiden is available to come for the meeting with the midwife and wants to be there, would that be okay with you?”

Loki cocked his head and his face turned inquisitive. “You would not mind if the talk turned quite intimate?”

Darcy shrugged. “The most intimate I could imagine is questions about sex, or my uterus. Aiden knows I have a uterus and she’s pretty fine with it, and if she doesn’t know we have sex, it’s only because she doesn’t want to think about it too hard. Anyway, it would be her choice, if we give her the opportunity. I figured she would be interested because of the medical angle, you know?”

“I do not mind, and if it is your wish she be there, then by all means invite her.” Loki plucked the empty tea cup from Darcy’s hands and put it off to the side, by the wall. “But you shall not distract me from my mission. A very important mission it is, too.”

Loki plucked open the first button of her leather and fur coat, and then the second. And then the third.

“I see,” Darcy said. “You do realize I’m using that to stay warm?”

Loki leaned in and brushed his face - and his facial hair, oh, heaven - against her neck. Then he licked the outer rim of her ear.

“Yes, well, I thought perhaps I could warm you with some vigorous bed sport instead,” he whispered.

Darcy snorted. “You say the sweetest things,” she replied sarcastically. Someone once told her that sarcasm was only thinly veiled anger, but she couldn’t be bothered to think about that too deeply just at the moment.

“Would you like me to be sweet?” Loki asked, removing the lap blanket then taking up her hands and leaning back, pulling her gently but irrevocably towards him, over him as he began to lean back and recline on a pile of pillows. Loki was all grace and power. Darcy did her best not to accidentally knee him in the balls.

“Well. I do like you bold and saucy,” she pointed out once she had successfully straddled him, moving one pillow out of her way on the left side and tucking it under her right knee. “Remind me what sweet looks like?”

A smile erased the last of the angst from his face. “My darling, it would be my pleasure to do so.”

He flexed and half sat up again, and trailed three fingertips down the side of her face, down her neck, and over her shirt down the middle of her chest, between the braless girls, and down to her waist. Loki had only just gotten one hand around her side with a finger underneath her shirt that she pressed the pause button.

“Mmm, but come to think of it, why are you still wearing a shirt?” she asked, a small smile on her face.

“Because no one has taken it off me. Yet.”

“Saucepot,” she accused, making quick work of his shirt and throwing it in the general direction of their bedroom. “Like you usually wait for me to take off your clothes. I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve actually waited that long. What happened to you demonstrating what sweet looked like?”

His smile was more than a bit mischievous. From his sit-up like position, he now had both hands at her waistband, underneath the hem of her shirt. He ran cool fingertips, and then dull nails along the line above her yoga pants.

“Are sweet and saucy diametrically opposed?” he asked, his tone as innocent as the pure driven snow. “Mutually exclusive?”

Darcy was enjoying the hell out of herself, but that didn’t mean she’d just let him win. “Pretty sure argumentative is, Silvertongue.”

He smiled and acted wounded all at the same time. “Ah! A hit! A palpable hit!” He leaned up further and captured her lips in his and Darcy was forcibly reminded that the nickname Silvertongue had at least three meanings. When he was finished with the kiss, she could feel his lips against her throat. “You would have me seduce you while wounded?”

Darcy smiled. “You once promised me that you would eat me out even when you were magically exhausted. I’m sure this won’t be a problem for you.” She pushed him back onto the pillows and leaned over him, her hands bracing herself on either side of his head. Except that the pillows weren’t exactly a firm foundation for this sort of thing, so she ended up bracing herself against his shoulders.

And then she was on the bottom, because Loki slipped and shifted and rolled. And there was a breeze against her thighs…

Because Loki had made her clothes disappear. But notably not the knee-high leather and fur boots, nor the calf-length leather and fur coat. Which meant that Darcy was still fairly warm.

“You are delectable,” he whispered, hovering above her, the corded muscles in his arms perfectly visible from her peripheral vision, as was his frankly magnificent chest and washboard abs.

Darcy liked to think she wasn’t a shallow woman. Her husband was wise, peaceful, insightful, wickedly funny, and a thoroughly decent man, despite his knee-jerk reaction to prevaricate whenever possible. But sweet Jesus he was also the living embodiment of peak physical perfection, and a damn fine lover. And moments like this she kind of just wanted to pause and look at him. And possibly drool a little. Because Loki made her mouth, literally, water.

And then, the jarring sound of attention-seeking kittens startled her so badly that she jumped.

_“Meow!”_

_“Mrrowr!”_

Darcy had no idea when Pratchett and Dr. Who had come in through their cat door, but they were hard to miss, now. They had seated themselves next to her head. And just when she had decided to have a quiet moment to objectify Loki, too.

_“Meow!”_

_“Mrrowr!”_

Loki paused and smiled at her. “They have prescient timing.”

Darcy turned her head and looked at the pair of six month old kittens who had, obviously, the run of the compound. “I’m busy.”

_“Mrrowr!”_ replied Dr. Who.

Darcy faced Loki and was determined to ignore the kittens. It wasn’t hard. Cute though they were, and they really, really were, Loki was on the other side of that equation, and really, it wasn’t fair to the kittens.

She reached up and grabbed the back of his neck. “Hi.”

“Hello,” he echoed softly, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I believe I was in the midst of convincing you that I can be sweet. Shall I continue, or have I satisfied your curiosity already?”

“I think you should continue,” she replied quietly, her voice still audible under studiously ignored cat pleas for attention.

And then Darcy discovered that having sex while two kittens stare at you and meow is actually kind of weird.

* * *

When Darcy and Loki were lazing about after the morning round of connubial bliss, also scritching a pair of adorable kittens, Darcy remembered that there were one or two things that Loki had back burnered in their conversation earlier.

“So, why were you back early this morning?”

Suddenly the kittens stopped purring, and it took Darcy a moment to realize that they’d stopped breathing as well. Loki took each of them carefully in his hands and placed them on pillows an arm’s length away.

It took Darcy’s brain some number of moments to realize that the kittens hadn’t spontaneously died, and that’s why Loki was placing them reverently on pillows. No, Loki had stopped time, but only for the two of them.

_So, this was a serious conversation, then._

Which was why Darcy was confused when she saw a grin on her husband’s face.

“Well. I figured out who The Meddler was.”

“During your run?” Darcy asked, confusion personified.

“In essence, though not originally. He came to me in a dream that I had forgotten. I remembered the dream during the run,” Loki said, all shades of previous frazzlement erased from his face. But that was maybe the orgasms. They always calmed him down.

Darcy shifted to her stomach, grabbing a few pillows to prop herself up with and leaned on her elbows as she stared at Loki, still naked, and gesturing with his hands as he spoke.

“Oh, shit. Okay. And?” Darcy prompted.

“I guessed his identity. I won’t tell you his name until after this is all over - just a precaution, you understand.”

“No, no, no, I get it. He’s a big bad and his name attracts attention. Don’t worry. Go on.”

“And I also guessed a point of leverage, and used it as a bargaining chip.” Loki grinned and laced his fingers together, cradling the back of his head with them even as he arched his back to stretch it. Darcy heard three cracks before he sighed and flopped back into the pillows.

Darcy was getting tense. She blinked a few times, thinking about what he had just said in his nonchalant manner. “Loki, are you saying you just made a deal with the devil? That shit never works out.”

Loki shook his head, still grinning. “He doesn’t have that much power. He only wishes he did.”

Darcy blinked again.

“So what’s his side of the deal?” Darcy asked, hugging the pillows to her chest.

“He leaves the Tesseract alone, gives me time to do my part, and in the end gets a much better chance at achieving his life goals.”

“‘Life goals.’ We’re coming back to that in a minute if it’s not already abundantly clear. Okay, so what’s your part?”

“I bargain with a third party on his behalf and get her to release the spell she has laid on him.”

“Huh. Okay.” Darcy thought about this for a moment. It seemed simple enough. But of course she still had some questions. “Why’d she lay a spell on him?”

“Legend has it--”

“ _Legend?”_ Darcy interrupted without even thinking. “These people are in your _legends?_ ”

“Yes, but don’t let that distract you. You have married someone, after all, who is in the legends of your own world,” Loki pointed out calmly. “So, legend has it that she doesn’t like him very much. But I believe there is more to it than that, though what it is, I only suspect. And I believe that my particular talents, used for the good of all, will be quite helpful in this endeavor.”

“Okay. So where does this third party live? And when do you need to do this?”

“The sooner the better. I have no idea if the Meddler will truly live up to his end of the bargain, and every reason to suspect that he will not. And I do not have an exact address for the third party, but I have a very strong feeling that when I am ready and I go looking for her, she will seek me out soon thereafter.”

“Okay. Do I get to know her name? This third-party? And what the Meddler’s life goals are?”

“Well, this is the part that may be difficult to believe. He wishes to die, and believes that will serve his ends and meet his goals. He cannot die, because of the spell laid on him. The rest is drama, as you would say.”

“So you’re going to kill him? Normally I’m not in favor of that sort of thing, but I could make an exception, here. I believe you when you say he’s dangerous. And he’s probably already done very bad things.”

“Not quite,” he said, which only served to confused Darcy further, as she had said rather a lot, and which part was he responding to, anyway? “I’m going to make him killable. He will undoubtedly die by some means or other shortly thereafter.”

Darcy let that one sink in for a bit, and Loki seemed content in the quiet. He rolled over to his side, right up against her and flung an arm out around her back, over the thick leather and fur coat she was still wearing.

“Okay. So, the third party’s name? Is that knowable?” Darcy asked, looking to her left and meeting his eye.

For the first point in the conversation, Loki’s happy demeanor dimmed. He sighed, looked away, and then looked back again. “Death,” he said, finally.

Darcy’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed again. “I’ve heard bargaining with him doesn’t work, either.”

“I have more than one ace up my sleeve,” Loki said, mysteriously.

Such mystery wasn’t impressing Darcy today. “Yeah. And I’d like to know what every one of them is before you do this, so I don’t freak out. Or at least some of them, if utter secrecy is required.”

Loki nodded. “I can arrange that. But not all today. This weekend, when we are on Asgard. While Rooftop and Mrs. Romanov are getting their medical attention, I shall whisk you off to meet someone very special to me whom I need to consult on this matter. I think that would be the best time to lay all my schemes before you both, at the same moment. As with other, lesser matters, I look to you to improve upon any and all of my schemes.”

Darcy’s smile was not so reluctant as she let on. And when he leaned into her for a kiss, she was not reluctant at all.

It was another forty-five minutes before Loki put the two of them back into the flow of time and dealt with the outraged meows of two kittens who knew they had just missed out on something, even if they weren’t clear on what.

* * *

Darcy told Borghild and Dagmar separately, mostly out of convenience’s sake. Borghild was stoic and Darcy frankly had no idea what the woman might have been thinking or feeling. The shieldmaiden told Darcy she would consider it overnight and let her know in the morning, and regardless, maintain the confidence she had been given.

Dagmar was much easier to read.

Darcy had learned that Dagmar was in her six hundreds - not quite in her full majority, but old enough to have learned a saleable skill and use it to earn money, as was the case in being Darcy’s maid. In Darcy’s head she equated it to being about seventeen years old. And apparently, Dagmar would be seventeen for another fifty years or so.

All the same, Dagmar’s eyes had widened when Darcy said, ‘my husband is adopted.’ When she continued on to say ‘He is actually Jotunn,’ Dagmar gasped.

“No!” Dagmar exclaimed, obviously shocked, and Darcy wondered just how many stereotypes she was working against.

“Yes,” Darcy replied calmly. “Eventually everyone will know, because we are going to have children sooner or later and they are all going to resemble their father. So, here’s the deal. I know this isn’t actually what you signed up for, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to seriously consider whether or not you wanted to continue as my maid, now that you do know. You can tell me tomorrow, when you’ve made up your mind.”

“I can tell you right now!” Dagmar said with unusual vigor, and Darcy had a sinking feeling that this was just the beginning of the rampant bigotry she was going to have to deal with on her husband’s behalf. She silently reminded herself that she was not allowed to stab anyone with a fork, even if she really wanted to.

“Dagmar,” Darcy said patiently, “I think you’re missing the point of careful consideration for several hours.”

“But I know now! I will _never_ abandon you, Your Highness.”

In that moment, when tears sprang to Darcy’s eyes unbidden and still mercifully unshed, Darcy realized how much she had been steeling herself to deal with other people’s unconscious hatred, something she had never consciously had to do before. And how much it hurt to even have to don that kind of armor.

“And His Highness Prince Loki is proof that we must all be quite wrong about the Jotunn.” After a moment, she added, “And the All-Father showed great wisdom in making His Highness Crown Prince during the time when all would find out about His Highness’s adoption. It shows to all that the All-Father loves and trusts His Highness, just as much as the All-Father does His Highness Prince Thor.” And then, as an afterthought. “His Highness Prince Thor is not adopted as well?”

Darcy smiled, blinking to clear her vision. “No. He’s not.”

Dagmar nodded. “Even if His Highness Prince Thor once again becomes Crown Prince after this, the All-Father’s gesture is wise and such subtleties will not go unnoticed.”

Darcy nodded, wondering why she should be amazed that her maid was awesome.

“Thank you, Dagmar. We’ll need this information to remain private for now, but not for long. Borghild has also been told, if you need someone to discuss this with. I wouldn’t like to ask you to keep it a secret by yourself.”

Dagmar paled. “Your Highness, I would never speak of your personal matters with anyone, not even another member of your household.”

Darcy’s eyebrows rose and she wondered what taboo she had just tripped over.

_Well, fuck it._

“Thank you for your loyalty, Dagmar.” Darcy was thinking on her feet, and hoping she wasn’t going to end up putting one of those feet in her mouth. “You know that my life before I met Loki was very different than my life now. One of the things that was different was that I never had a personal maid, or a servant, or a bodyguard, or an assistant, or anything.” _And the idea of royalty was abhorrent to me. And I’m still dealing with my issues in that regard. But you don’t need to know about that right now._ “And I had no idea how much loyalty I could expect from you or anyone else.” Darcy continued in a gentler tone. “Or how much I would appreciate that loyalty. But what I do know about is honesty. And what keeping secrets does to people. Asking someone to keep a secret, that can be a burden as well as an honor. And my family wouldn’t think it’s a good or honorable thing for me to ask someone to keep a secret without giving them someone else to talk to, if and when the burden becomes too much to bear.

“All that is to say, you don’t have to discuss this with anyone. But if you need to, there are people you can talk to and still keep our confidence.”

Dagmar did not look convinced, but she seemed to at least understand where Darcy was coming from. Which was good enough for today.

* * *

Darcy pulled out her relatively new cell phone, the one that came from the S.H.I.E.L.D stockpile of random useful things that their new Head of Security drew from. Her family each had one, as well.

She pulled up the texting app and grabbed the ongoing conversation with her sister.

_"Hey. Are you free at all today? I’m setting my first ob/gyn apt. Wanna come?"_

It wasn’t too long later that she got a response.

_"I’d love to, thanks for asking me. I get off at noon today, and I could get back to my apartment by 1:30. If it’s possible to schedule it then or near, I’d love that even more. It’s a 24 hour shift this time. I’m going to need to collapse at some point."_

_"Lemme see what I can do."_

If only Frigga had a cell phone. As she didn’t, Darcy went outside, looked up and politely asked Heimdall if he would send a message to the Queen, asking for a brief audience.

Come to think of it, this way wasn’t terribly inconvenient, either.

Forty-five minutes later, Darcy excused herself from her meeting and stepped outside of the trailer that served as her office.

Her wrist was itching like hell.

And then Frigga stood before her, looking about as radiant as she always did.

“How lovely to see you, my dear. I have been thinking about you and your works here on Midgard. How do you fare today?”

“I’m well, thank you Frigga. I’m…” And for some reason Darcy found it very difficult to say ‘maybe pregnant’. She took a deep breath. She looked the queen in the eye. She took another deep breath and straightened her spine. (Being with Frigga always made Darcy want to improve her posture.) “Don’t get too excited yet, but I think I might be pregnant.”

Frigga’s eyes lit up and Darcy watched her take a slow deep breath. A little smile formed on her face.

“I’d like to talk with one of your healers who would… _understand_ our situation. And why I am so _cold_ right now.”

Frigga nodded. “I shall send someone immediately.”

Darcy glanced at her wrist. “Actually, would it be possible to send someone in about four hours?”

Frigga nodded silently.

“Loki and I, and two of our assistants, are coming for the weekend. I have questions about the scheme with the visiting groups, and Loki and I need to consult with some of the people he knows for another project he’s working on. I was hoping that if I needed to do a more indepth consultation with a healer, it could happen then.”

“Of course, dear. And important to your functioning here, I shall also arrange a meeting between yourself and the leaders of all the different departments. This will be very useful to you in arranging those weekends, and you should feel free to send your requirements directly to the leaders themselves.

“And to that end,” Frigga continued. “I have been considering that there should be a regular system of sending and receiving messages, perhaps twice daily; once at a time convenient to Midgard and once at a time convenient to Asgard. This would benefit the Aesir and apprentices among you who may wish to write home upon occasion. What time would be best for you?”

Darcy blinked. _Mail. What a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?_

“Nine in the morning would be great.”

“And ours shall be at the twentieth bell. I shall send you a trunk. What inscription should it bear, my dear?”

Darcy didn’t have to think twice. “Asgardian Embassy Mail Delivery. And make it a good sized trunk.”

“Ah!” Frigga said with a knowing look. “I see you are already acquainted with such things. Midgard _has_ come a long way.”

“It really has,” Darcy agreed.

“Is there anything else we should discuss at present?”

Darcy almost didn’t ask. But then she did. Because Loki wouldn’t.

“How is Odin?”

Frigga’s smile grew soft. “He is well. Sleeping. Naught has changed. Thank you for asking after him, my dear.” After only a moment’s pause, she added, “You should not worry about meeting him, you know. He will love you, as I do.”

Darcy’s look turned rueful. “You don’t know that for certain, or you wouldn’t have been able to say it.”

Frigga laughed, a sudden thing, as if it surprised even her. “No, it is not something I have foreseen. But I do know my husband. And I know how dearly he loves Loki. And _when_ he has seen what joys you bring our youngest son, who has for too long walked in the shadow of melancholy, he will be nothing but overjoyed at your presence.”

It was clear that Darcy was just going to have to take Frigga’s word for it, but she wasn’t about to say that to her mother-in-law. Instead she nodded and smiled and changed the subject and soon enough the image of Frigga was gone.

Darcy returned to her meeting after sending a quick text to Aiden, and one to Loki. Darcy wondered when Odin _would_ wake up, and how Loki would take it when he did.

* * *

Loki finished up the day’s recordings for Duolingo, the language program that Darcy had first suggested they work with to enable the rest of Yggdrasil to learn English, and for English-speakers to learn the Common Tongue of Yggdrasil, which was, of course, an ancient hybrid of Low Elvish and Vanir with some realm-specific words thrown in from all of the great varieties of languages that have been spoken over time in all of the nine realms. The course was twenty-two percent done, which was not to his liking, but he had only been providing information and audio for the past six weeks. If Thor was as keen as he seemed at first, Loki would need to find more time in his day, lest his brother catch up, which grated in a way that Loki recognized would need to be brought to deeper consideration in his meditations.

But other things were going well. Contract negotiations with Google were progressing nicely, despite the fact that Loki refused to allow them to consider bringing fossil fuel burning and polluting engines onto the planet. Or even nicotine cigarettes or cigars. In fact, Jack Lewis had introduced Loki to the concept of ‘Carry In and Carry Out’, which meant that whatever foreign item or substance was brought onto the planet must also be carried away, even if it was fully used up and needed to be ‘thrown away’.

On Asgard, items which no longer had any use left to them were either broken and melted down for reuse, composted, or were safely burned for heat and cooking purposes.

This was not, Loki had been discovering in dribs and drabs, the way things worked on Midgard.

Sewer systems.

Water treatment plants.

Garbage pick up.

Landfills.

Nuclear energy plants.

Toxic waste.

Coal-fired energy plants.

Strip mining.

Illnesses due to coal mining.

Illnesses due to the prevalence of lead.

Illnesses due to asbestos.

Illnesses due to radiation.

Disposable this-that-and-the-other.

Polluted air.

Polluted land.

Polluted water.

There was much to be learned from modern Midgard. Their use of the scientific method. Their harnessing of electricity and the subsequent revolutions in energy, industry, commerce, communication, travel, finance, medicine, and information.

And there was much that Asgard could offer in return. That was something of which Loki was equally certain. Because Midgardians were once again treating their realm as a disposable commodity, and it could be that they would not like Yggdrasil’s natural response to such things.

* * *

_“Knock, knock. Can I come in?”_ Darcy texted her sister at one thirty, giving her fair warning before she apparated into her living room.

It was only a moment or two later that she received the response.

_“Parking now. I’ll be up in a minute. Go on in.”_

Darcy turned to her husband. “I may be a couple of minutes. We’ll meet you both back at the trailer, yeah?” Not that the healer had arrived yet. They were waiting at the bifrost rune and she was due any moment.

“Of course, my darling.”

Loki took up her right hand in both of his and kissed her knuckles. It was a sweet gesture, and it did not escape her notice, in particular, that it was _sweet._

Because her husband was still proving he could be sweet.

As Loki’s eyes rose again to meet hers, they were playful.

Darcy said nothing out loud, but she did grin.

Secrets sucked, but inside jokes were awesome.

She took her hand back and tried to clear her mind and focus on the couch in her sister’s living room, a nice piece of furniture her parents had found at an estate sale. Darcy was not entirely successful, because she was also thinking about just how sweet her husband could be.

Three tries later and she was in Dallas. She’d only just got settled on the couch and was wondering if she should practice meditating, or work on one of her lists when the handle of the front door rattled and a key was put into a lock.

When her sister came in and locked the door behind her, her hands full of bags, Aiden called out to her in exacerbation. “Couldn’t unlock the door, huh?”

“Nope,” Darcy responded with more cheeriness than she felt. “Only reason I could come here without bodyguards was because I was coming into a locked room, and you’re the only one with the key. Natasha didn’t even like that, really, but Loki overrode her.”

“Does Natasha like anything?” Aiden grumbled from the kitchen, putting away a few groceries she’d obviously gotten on the way home.

“Pretty sure she likes guns, and her husband,” Darcy answered from the couch. “She might like me. Hard to tell, though. She’s a complicated woman.”

Aiden harumphed, her head obviously in the fridge. She said something else, but Darcy didn’t catch it.

Aiden strode across her living room, toward the back of the apartment where the bedrooms were. “Five minutes,” she said as she passed.

Darcy sat back and instead of meditating or working on a list, she took out the book on the shared history of Jotunheim and Asgard and picked up where she’d left off. It wasn’t a particularly exciting read, but she was starving for any actual information she could get on Jotunheim. She wasn’t totally sure, but she thought that she had just gotten to the war that happened around Loki’s birth-slash-adoption. It had to be. There was nothing else after it.

The account was short and sweet, and Darcy read it over for the second time.

 

 

> _“This is the account of the war between Jotunheim and Asgard in the four thousand three hundred and fifty-eighth common year of the reign of King Odin of Asgard, All-Father of Yggdrasil._
> 
> _“King Laufey of Jotunheim held grievances against Asgard. He believed the requirements placed on Jotunn apprentices training in Source and Dream with Mistresses from the Royal Academy of Sorceresses were unjust. This refers to the requirement that apprentices from Alfheim need only master the first gate, apprentices from Jotunheim need master the first four gates, and apprentices from all other realms need master the first two gates._
> 
> _“Jotunheim believed that this led to the brainwashing of powerful Jotunn youth to the detriment of Jotunn culture. His own two sons are of an age to begin their training and have displayed signs of becoming powerful sorcerers. When he sought sorceresses who would teach his sons on his terms, without the requirement of any moral progress, he was denied by the Academy, as well as by the community of Jotun sorceresses still residing on Jotunheim, remotely._
> 
> _“In his rage, Jotunheim slaughtered all who resided in the remote community on Jotunheim._
> 
> _“Asgard was informed of the deaths in the remote community by the Academy, and sought out the presence of Jotunheim to speak reason to his fevered brain._
> 
> _“Asgard requested his remorse, and was denied._
> 
> _“Asgard requested his apology to the Academy, and was denied._
> 
> _“Asgard requested his recompense to the families of the slaughtered, and was denied._
> 
> _“Asgard requested leave to make his own offer of sanctuary and support to the families of the slaughtered, and was denied._
> 
> _“Jotunheim reminded Asgard that he was sovereign ruler of his own realm and dealt him a blow._
> 
> _“Jotunheim declared that there would be no more manipulation of Source within Jotunheim._
> 
> _“Jotunheim declared that the Academy, who he claimed were but pawns of the Golden Throne, would no longer be allowed to corrupt the hearts and minds of malleable youth, rendering them castrated and non-Jotunn._
> 
> _“Jotunheim declared that none would be allowed, for their own good, to have the stain of the Academy and their corrupted morals touch them and so spread to infect the realm._
> 
> _“Jotunheim seemed possessed of a rage beyond rage and a fear beyond fear. His true motivations are unknown, but whatever prophecy fills his mind with dread has done so completely._
> 
> _“Asgard inquired whether he intended to keep his people trapped in this realm, to bar free trade and use of Doors to his people._
> 
> _“Jotunheim agreed that this was to be the case._
> 
> _“Asgard requested that one solicitation be allowed, just one, that any who wish to emigrate could do so before the Doors were barred._
> 
> _“Jotunheim denied the request, and viewed the very request as an act of war._
> 
> _“Jotunheim made threats against the Academy. He would rape their mistresses of the ninth and murder every sorceress, from the apprentice in her first year to the Head of the Council._
> 
> _“Jotunheim made threats against Asgard. He would torture and murder the royal family, cannibalize their servants, and set fire to the realm._
> 
> _“Jotunheim seemed both thoroughly mad and also quite serious in his threats._
> 
> _“Knowing the general state of the army of Jotunheim to be unready for war at a large scale, Asgard reluctantly agreed to war._
> 
> _“The first wave of warriors, with berserkers held in reserve in the second wave, was more than sufficient to subdue all that Jotunheim had to offer. Mercy was the first response to hesitation on behalf of the Jotunn warrior, and many lives that might have ended nobly, but all too briefly, in those days saw instead length of life to enjoy with family and friends._
> 
> _“By the end of one realm week Jotunheim had given leave that Asgard should offer sanctuary once and only once, and then leave forthwith, never to disturb the peace of Jotunheim again._
> 
> _“Sanctuary was offered, with the offer laid open for an additional realm week. But one took it, and sanctuary was duly given._
> 
> _“Asgard has promised that none shall come to Jotunheim unbidden._
> 
> _“Jotunheim repented of his threats against the Academy and Asgard._
> 
> _“In the end, it is considered that Jotunheim lost to Valhalla twenty-three brave children of the realm, who were joined in those hallowed halls by twelve brave children of Asgard. May they drink in peace and forgive lesser men their follies.”_

 

Darcy thought about what she had read. It had to be the war that happened around Loki’s birth. While the account wasn’t specific about who sought sanctuary, it was very clear that only one person did so.

And that obviously had been Loki. As an infant. Somehow. And, _shit_. Because if his brothers could have been even half as powerful as sorcerers as he was, but now weren’t, because Laufey had banned the use of magic in Jotunheim…

And what prophecy did Laufey know about? That obviously involved a powerful sorcerer of a son? Which he now had, but didn’t _know_ he had?

And was it the same prophecy that Loki was told about as a child? Not that she knew the exact details of it yet, but she knew it was heavy, and possibly horrible and tragic, and might, just might, not turn out to be the absolute end of the world if only Loki could manage to become enlightened before it happens. Or something like that.

For just a brief moment, Darcy wondered if she was actually in the middle of some sort of tragic Greek space opera.

Darcy also wondered when the last time it was that Loki had read this history.

* * *

Aiden walked back into the living room of her high-rise apartment in Dallas. It had  beautiful views, and was beautifully decorated. Aiden had always been good at that sort of thing, Darcy mused.

Darcy patted the sofa next to her. “Cop a squat,” she invited.

Aiden rolled her eyes. “We _were_ raised in the same household. You know, no one says that,” she pointed out, sitting down next to her sister nonetheless.

“So,” Darcy started out casually, not entirely certain what she would be saying until the words poured out of her mouth. “I might be having an alien baby.”

“That’s what I’ve been led to believe,” Aiden replied dryly.

“Which means that your niece or nephew is not going to be entirely human. Or look entirely human.”

Aiden gave Darcy a hard look. “But Loki looks entirely human,” she pointed out slowly.

“Yeah. About that. He’s actually a shapeshifter.”

Aiden blinked. “And this isn’t his normal shape?”

“Nope. Was a state secret, though. He’s adopted.”

Aiden blinked again. “So he’s not a prince?”

“No, he’s really a prince. He was a prince before the adoption, just of a different planet. But Odin really adopted him. He’s really the Crown Prince of Asgard. But he’s not Aesir. He’s Jotunn. But keep it on the downlow for now.”

Aiden blinked a few more times. “Does Mom know?”

Darcy snorted. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation, and she wasn’t going to rush it. “Not yet. You’re the first in the family that I’ve told.”

Aiden sat quietly for a while. “So what does he actually look like? Horns? Hooves? Tentacles?”

Darcy smiled. “Nope. None of that. He gets very cold, and he changes color. It just so happens that he turns my favorite shade of blue.”

Aiden looked confused. “That’s it?”

Darcy nodded. Then remembered something else. “Oh. And he’s supposed to be a giant. But he’s actually kind of a runt. Six foot two is short for the Jotunn. So, who knows how tall our kids will end up being.”

Aiden nodded slowly, taking it all in. “So… he’s a dwarf giant who’s cold and blue?”

Darcy nodded, glad this was going relatively easily.

“And that’s a state secret.”

“For now,” Darcy agreed. “There’s a lot of prejudice against the Jotunn in the rest of Yggdrasil.”

“The Universe is full of racist bastards,” Aiden pointed out.

Darcy smiled at her big sister, glad to see Aiden had decided not to be one of them.

* * *

A meeting that might have just been two or three people could have happened comfortably in Darcy and Loki’s bedroom in their trailer, given that Darcy might probably need to lay down at some point.

Now they were five, the bedroom was a bit cramped. Interestingly, not quite as cramped as when three of the five were copies of Loki doing delicious things to Darcy, but that required less personal space.

_When one of the people in your bedroom obstetrics meeting is the Queen, your mother-in-law, you wish you could forget that you ever even had sex with her son, much less multiple copies of him._

_In this room._

_Where she’s standing._

Darcy tried to focus.

Mistress Frete, to whom she and her sister had been introduced, had her lay down comfortably on the bed. The healer sat on the edge and with her eyes closed had one hand laying gently on Darcy’s lower abdomen.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes still closed. “You are pregnant. The child is Midgardian, Jotunn,” and there she paused, and a little crease formed in her brow. “And Elvish?” She turned to the Queen and Darcy saw her look askance.

“That is to be expected,” Frigga responded softly.

“Well. Well. That will make this all easier. Even with… would it be the great-grandmother who was Elvish?”

“Yes,” Frigga said simply, her face giving nothing away.

“Well. Well. I shall wish to see you every ten days. I understand you are travelling soon to Asgard. I will visit you at your convenience while you are there and I shall have some tokens for His Highness to put on you. It is the temperature that is at issue, of course. You must stay warm. The child must stay cold. As the child grows, the amount of cold it requires will grow with it, as well as the amount of warmth you require. This will be a delicate balance that we shall attempt to achieve as best we can, day by day.”

Darcy nodded, vindicated.

Aiden asked a question though. “How long will she be able to travel by bifrost?”

The healer turned briefly to her sister, but chiefly spoke to Loki. “With aid, Her Highness should be able to travel throughout her pregnancy.”

Then Darcy thought of a question. “How long do you think the pregnancy is going to last?””

Mistress Frete answered the question with a question. “How long do Midgardian pregnancies normally last?”

“Nine months,” Darcy answered.

The healer looked confused.

“Three-quarters of a realm year,” Loki translated.

“The Jotunn woman is pregnant for just over two Common Years, and Elves, of course, are pregnant for nearly five, but that may not lend much influence. We could expect _this_ pregnancy to be somewhere between Midgardian and Jotunn.”

“How long is a Common Year?” Aiden asked.

“Good question,” Darcy muttered.

“Only a bit longer than Midgard’s realm year,” Loki answered.

“So Darcy is going to be pregnant for something between nine and twenty-six months? But likely closer to twenty-six?”

“Apparently,” Loki answered with good humor.

“It’s a good thing you love him,” Aiden said softly to Darcy, and she couldn’t help but to agree.


	5. Wherein Loki Plots, Darcy Plans, and Tony Grovels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life continues on a pace at the Asgardian Embassy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are awesome. That's all I'm saying right now. (Well, and a shout out to my husband who is beta, cheerleader, and co-conspirator all wrapped up into one adorbs package.)

Darcy had already left with Aiden and the Chief Healer had just returned to Asgard. Loki, at Frigga’s request, was strolling along with his mother, ostensibly so he could show her the progress they had made on the Embassy and Institute.

And Loki knew full well she cared little for such details.

There was much they could discuss. And some things they, perhaps, ought to discuss. But none of these things occurred to Loki just then. He was transfixed by one tiny, bothersome possibility that had teased at the edge of his senses since his mother first arrived.

Eventually, he broke the silence.

“Mother… have you mastered the ninth gate?”

Loki glanced over and his eyes widened at his mother’s impish smile. So she  _ had.  _

“When?” he asked.

“After I sent your brother to you,” she said calmly.

“But when did you have the time to meditate? I must own that I barely have time now, and that is before we added in time to my schedule in which I must spend with the apprentices.”

Frigga nodded. “The days are long on Asgard, and I used my time wisely. My priorities were clear, as yours will be, when you sort through them all.”

Loki sighed. That was hard to hear, the idea that he had simply prioritized badly, and so had failed even before he had begun. 

“Yes,” he countered, realizing even as he did so that he was making excuses. He continued all the same, almost as if watching himself whine and complain like a little boy. “But the days are shorter here on Midgard. Significantly so.” And before he knew it, he no longer had such perspective, and had lost himself in his complaint. “And I am loathe to remove myself from the flow of time so regularly, and for something so…” He was about to say insignificant, but caught himself.

Because this wasn’t insignificant. This was everything.  _ Everything changes at the ninth gate _ , that was widely known, if not completely understood. And he needed to master the ninth, the sooner the better.

Loki took a deep breath and released the accumulated tension in his shoulders.

“I have for many a long year heeded the warnings of lesser masters in their call for caution in regards to the flow of time. Thus I have used it sparingly. Or, I mostly have. You are saying, then, that naught would come ill if I used it less sparingly, even regularly, in order to lengthen my days and meditate? And for the apprentices as well?”

Normally Loki was not so direct with his mother, as they usually understood each other without benefit of words, but in such a delicate matter, he could not risk the chance of misunderstanding.

“None at all,” Frigga replied calmly. When Loki glanced over, he caught an odd sort of little smile on her face and wondered what it was about. And then wondered about his wondering. He was usually the first to get the joke.

“There is another question you wish to ask me on this subject, I think,” Frigga added, still smiling her mysterious little smile.

Loki’s frustration grew from nonexistent to quite present and obvious as he wondered what his mother could mean.

“Forgive me,” she said, grinning wider now. “I am being obtuse. It is the prerogative of mistresses of the ninth.”

Loki tried to calm himself and was surprised by the depth of his formerly unacknowledged frustration. Suddenly he wasn’t just frustrated about this, he was frustrated about  _ everything. _

“No?” Frigga asked, still in good humor. “Well, it will come to you later, I am sure. The answer is yes.”

Loki spent several fruitless minutes trying to calm himself and wondered if it would be entirely too rude to stop time in the midst of his conversation with his mother simply so he could calm down. As she was now a mistress of the ninth, she would undoubtedly know, probably join him out of time, and thus offer him no time alone to sort himself out.

Instead, Loki decided to change the subject.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Loki asked, changing the course of the conversation to something entirely different that also was frustrating him.

Frigga’s smile turned rueful, Loki noted out of the corner of his eye.

“He looked always for the best time, wishing to spare you every pain. This was not possible, of course. He could see that plainly as a present reality, but he had hopes that the future would hold the answer.”

“Ah,” Loki responded, calmer now that he was focusing on someone else’s faults. Odin had fallen into a keen trap of the seventh gate, which his father had not mastered. And Loki was intellectualizing to distance himself from the pain. And he knew it. And he fully authorized it, for the moment.

He sighed again.

“It might have been useful to know, earlier. It would have answered many questions I had about myself,” he pointed out, his tone gentler than his emotions.

Frigga nodded quietly before answering. “You already bore too much. Odin refused to add another single feather to your burden, much less this.”

Loki understood her point. That understanding failed to make him feel any better about it, however.

It was quiet between them for a long while. 

“Little boy who knows his fate,” Frigga whispered, switching from the Common Tongue to Vanir, a language few in the Enclosure knew, and her own, native tongue. In an unemotional voice she continued, almost as if she was remembering another lifetime ago. “How I wanted to kill that seer, throttle him with my bare hands, bash his head against the pavement stones, and wipe his blood down the side of my face, only to go and comfort you then, with his blood on my face.” She sighed. “It took a great deal of time for me to regain mastery of the third gate after that. I lost it entirely for many years. Many, many years.”

Loki smiled despite the pain, feeling keenly the depth of his mother’s love for him. They walked another quarter mile in silence.

“My other mother’s mother is Elvish?” Loki asked, after staring out into the desert for sometime. He knew that the king of Jotunheim was entirely Jotunn in his heritage, but he hadn’t realized that the queen wasn’t.

“Mmm, yes. Elven women are the only other race who may successfully bear the children of either Jotunn or Maspar men. It is their ability to control their own body temperature, of course. That your child is one-eighth elven, along with the help of the healers, is the only reason, I think, that Darcy will be able to bear your children, my dear. But I do not fear for her, and neither should you.”

Loki closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He concentrated on his breath. Darcy was safe. And he was, apparently, only mostly Jotunn. He was, apparently, partly Elvish. Which could, apparently, account for his ability to maintain his body temperature wherever he generally needed it to be, slight discomfort aside.

“But Odin’s mother’s mother was Jotunn. And his mother’s father was Aesir.”

“And a powerful sorceress in her own right. What measures she took to ensure the health of her daughter before the birth are unknown. She did not share them with others, and certainly not with me,” Frigga responded, ending with no small amount of humor.

She continued. “Your other mother’s mother had, upon learning of your birth and subsequent removal from Jotunheim, expressed a wish to see you in due course of time, once you were told of your early history. She resides on Alfheim.”

The question burst from him before he knew it. “Was I stolen?”

Frigga stopped and turned to face Loki. She reached up and cradled his face in both of her hands as she sometimes would when he was but a child.

“No,” she said simply, looking into his eyes and laying herself bare before his senses. And he knew she was not lying.

A simple answer. Simple, and direct, and impossible to twist to mean something else, not when he was paying attention, not when the other laid herself bare before him.

Loki drew in a shaky breath and exhaled, his face still cradled by his mother’s hands as he looked down into her eyes.

Spontaneously, he embraced her. It was brief and they quickly resumed walking in silence once more.

Walking next to him, this time with her arm curled around his, Frigga continued. “Odin will tell you the story, and it is his to tell. It is beautiful. I cried when I heard it. And by that time, your father was thoroughly in love with you. He fell in love with you before he fell in love with Thor, you know. And he tried very hard not to show you favoritism throughout your youth. It was even more difficult for him after the prophecy was revealed to you, and you started working so hard… and Thor… did not match your pace.”

Loki could not help the look of disbelief that was writ large across his face.  _ He _ was his father’s favorite? Though Frigga’s words had the taste of truth, they clashed mightily with his own experiences.

Frigga answered his look with her own glance of silent challenge, because of course, she had spoken truthfully. And he knew it. They both did.

“This is most… shocking,” Loki finally decided on.

Frigga nodded sagely. “Life often is.” After more silence, Frigga added, “I feel he will wake soon.”

Loki sighed.

She continued, after a moment. “Interestingly, he wakes usually having broken one or more new gates. I wonder if this time he will continue on to mastery.”

Loki kept the rest of his questions about his father to himself. They were impertinent and rhetorical, and he had no wish to play such games with his mother.

“Will you see your other mother’s mother with Darcy?”

Loki nodded. “After I speak with Odin.”

Frigga nodded, and then pulled a sealed scroll from her store and handed it to him.

“Is this her direction?” Loki asked.

Frigga shook her head. “No. That is a copy of a letter I sent on behalf of Odin. He had an agreement with your other mother. And it was time for an update. It could not be delayed, but I wished you to know what was being said of you.”

Loki reeled yet again, but nodded and silently slipped the scroll into his own store.

The silence stretched for another quarter mile. 

Finally, Loki recalled yet another aspect of his duty. In particular, the meeting he’d had yesterday afternoon with the Head of Security for the entirely insecure Embassy Enclosure that was less enclosed and more wide-open. He had an idea for a primary security measure, but was uncertain if it was feasible in several different ways, and wished to consult his mother before possibly embarrassing himself in front of others, whose help he would also need.

He explained the whole of his scheme to his mother, and after he assured her that such extreme measures on the whole would be considered reasonable and normal on Midgard, received both her assent and support.

“For such an endeavor you would need… let me see… the strength of six masters?”

Loki nodded. “I plan on constructing something similar but on a smaller scale to test my theory. I’ll use the apprentices. It will be part of their training.”

Frigga gave Loki a dubious look, but he waved it away. 

“Surely you don’t subscribe to such archaic notions, Mother.” Loki had always despised the way most mistresses refused to collaboratively work with their own apprentices.

After the passage of but three heartbeats, Frigga laughed despite herself. “I suppose I don’t, not anymore. Thank you for the challenge.”

Loki laughed once, short and sharp, amazed at how quickly his mother had recovered from what had to have been a long held belief that she just now realized was wrong.

Well, that was a mistress of the ninth.

“I shall do the work with the apprentices on the morrow, so when we meet again I shall know how feasible it is.”

“So be it, my son,” Frigga said, smiling once again.

Loki let the endearment and the statement of fact wash over him in a warm and loving wave of emotion. His mother loved him. And she  _ was _ his mother. Though she did not bear him, she raised him and taught him and loved him no less than the child she did bear.

And somewhere on Jotunheim, in the midst of glacier and frost, there lived a half Jotunn, half Elvish woman who also called herself his mother, who did bear him, who loved him and looked forward to news of him.

And he  _ hadn’t _ been stolen.

Frigga left shortly thereafter, and Loki sat down and stopped time, his head spinning with new information, possible schemes, and a tumultuous wave of emotion. He sat in quiet meditation as the sun hovered unmoving in the sky until the tumult finally ceased.

In time, Loki remembered the scroll his mother handed him. He took it out, not knowing what to expect. What he found was written in High Elvish.

* * *

 

> _ Dear daughter, _
> 
> _ Your father sleeps, but remains well. I write in his stead, and apologize for the breach in tradition. _
> 
> _ I have news indeed of your father’s second-born. He has married. She is a good Midgardian, appropriate for his life, but they also bring one another great joy. Theirs is a love match of their own choosing. Also he begins a new chapter of his life on Midgard with her, as our ambassador. Also, he knows a portion of the secret that has been kept lo this long while. When your father wakes he will tell the whole of the story, and finally all shall be revealed, to him at least. _
> 
> _ May the days of your suffering be brief, indeed, _
> 
> _ Your loving mother _

 

* * *

Darcy had popped into her father’s office, met her mother for coffee, and caught Austin after work. Not even her mother had made a fuss about the news she needed to share. In the end, he was still human-shaped and human-sized, even if he wasn’t human-temperatured, or human-colored. The fact that he was an alien to begin with was far more interesting than the fact that he was cold and blue.

So life continued on.

Darcy’s focus was primarily on raising the Embassy and Institute from the dust of their collective imaginations, while staying within her budget, and raising money from the individuals who wished to pay for the privilege of a weekend stay on Asgard.

They’d only been public for 36 hours, but she and Natasha had been ready. They’d had plenty of time before Loki had made himself known to the world to produce a slick and beautiful digital package in six different languages, ready to send out once Natasha made first contact with the staff of each person on her list.

There were twenty different people on the first list, and thirty on the second, just in case. It contained no war lords, no drug lords, and no sitting politicians. It also contained no one Darcy found personally revolting. Tony Stark, for instance, had been taken off the list.

So far they’d only had two responses that were less than entirely enthusiastic, and even those weren’t wholly negative. While two well-known billionaires weren’t sure if they wanted to pay for the weekend, they did want to partner with the Institute, and as they both had foundations that gave away billions of dollars in grants every year, Natasha happily passed on their information to Jane’s assistant, Sharon.

And when J.K. Rowling’s people got back to them with a yes (actually an ‘Oh my God, yes!’) Darcy literally did a happy dance around her work trailer, much to the bemusement of Borghild who was studying English, and Natasha, who was outright laughing. And then they mutually decided that the author’s party would comprise the first to visit Asgard, and Darcy couldn’t help occasionally squealing and flailing whenever she thought of it.

By the time Loki had caught up with Darcy after her run, she was a much calmer woman. The two on-the-fence billionaires had called back - or, at least, their assistants had - and asked if the offer was still open. In fact, within four hours of their initial inquiry, all twenty in the original list had responded in the positive. The first dozen were given firm yeses back from Darcy’s office and the next eight were put on a waiting list, because even though she was technically over budget in terms of visitors, Darcy couldn’t bear to irrevocably close those doors and the financial and social resources that were involved. Besides? Perhaps it could be an annual thing, for a while, as long as there was interest. Darcy and Natasha had decided that tomorrow they would go ahead and ping the second list, too. If she were going to go to Loki and try to convince him of her rolling annual billionaire thing, it would probably be best if she had an impressive waiting list in her pocket - like, at least several years worth.

When he did catch up with her, it was about as dramatic as her husband tended to be. She’d been taking a shower - always a necessity after her runs - and he just walked in, naked as the day he was born. He had an intent look in his eye, he was already completely hard, and he went straight for a deep kiss. Needless to say, Darcy dropped the soap. That was somewhere around when a finger started questing around in her lady garden, but Darcy wasn’t entirely sure about the exact order of events. When Loki’s lips left hers and started in with open mouthed kisses on her throat, Darcy cleared it even as she came out of her husband-induced haze.

“So. Hi,” she started.

“Hello, darling,” he murmured against her skin before returning to nip it with his teeth.

“Uh, been meaning to ask you...” Darcy took a deep breath and shook her head a little to try and remember what she’d wanted to ask. It came back to her when she thought of sex with him. “Whose part elvish - me or you?”

“That would be me,” he said before bending slightly, curving around to bring his mouth to the tip of her wet breast. Well, really, everything was wet.

Darcy smoothed his hair back, away from his face. Some of it was wet, some of it was still dry, and it looked adorably funny. 

Which was nice, since she felt a little disappointed not to be secretly part elvish. When she sighed, Loki straightened up and looked at her, his brows slightly furrowed. He absentmindedly bent down to grab up the soap and Darcy couldn’t help but to admire his very fine butt. She really liked how the tattoos from his back came down and curved around the outside of it, framing its perfect roundness. When he rose again, he began washing her tenderly and Darcy sighed an altogether different kind of sigh.

“And how has your day been thus far, darling?” he asked as he washed her back. 

Darcy sighed again, happily, as she let the hot water pound onto her scalp. “Good. Things are going swimmingly.” She briefly recapped the initial success of the billionaire plan. “We still have so much to iron out, but I think this weekend will be really helpful. Natasha and I are compiling lists of questions. But, oh, I was curious. Relatively speaking, what time zone is the palace in? When we went over for the wedding, I thought it might have been the same as us here in Mountain Time, but when Natasha asked, I really wasn’t sure, and we want the timing to be perfect for our guests.”

Loki hummed, making sure her breasts were very thoroughly soapy, undoubtedly because cleanliness was high on his list of priorities and for no other reason, Darcy considered.

“The palace isn’t quite in the Mountain Time Zone. The days are longer on Asgard than on Earth,” he pointed out.

That information clicked over in Darcy’s brain a few times before her eyes grew wide as her formerly neat and tidy schedule just suddenly became all shot to hell.

“Exactly how much longer?” Darcy asked, a sense of growing foreboding beginning to dawn on her.

“Oh, perhaps six hours. Or so.”

Darcy swallowed hard.

“Are you being inexact as a rhetorical device, or don’t you actually know precisely how long it takes for your planet to rotate once around?”

Darcy began to rinse off but was waiting for his answer with a hard look on her face.

“The values of the scientific method really have infiltrated every part of life here, haven’t they?” Loki asked, as if this were somehow news to him.

“You’re stalling,” Darcy pointed out, carefully rinsing her lady garden.

When Loki then explained how time was (very crudely) measured on Asgard, Darcy was stunned. As Loki sunk down to his knees and gently pulled one of her legs over his shoulder, Darcy made a mental note to have Natasha order a stop watch and bring it with them to Asgard.

And then she didn’t think of much else after that.

* * *

Loki sat in while Natasha interviewed for six more staff for Darcy, and Rooftop for three more staff for him. He rejected three-quarters of the candidates, all of whom were agents for some country or other. In the end he only allowed former SHIELD employees to progress to the second round of interviews.

Loki had imagined the exercise might be slightly tedious, but it wasn’t an issue up for compromise, regardless of whether or not it amused him. And in the end, it did amuse him. The first round of interviews were humorously short and all ended in the same manner. After a few moments of small talk, Natasha or Rooftop simply asked, with a smile on their faces, if the candidate had ‘a loyalty to another government or organization that would lead the candidate to share sensitive information’. No one said yes, of course, but once they started lying in earnest it was clear, even through the encrypted uplink connection, as few of the interviews were in person. After Loki silently passed his verdict, Mr. and Mrs. Romanov both said the same sort of polite thank you and that was that. Their utter cordiality was highly amusing to him.

* * *

Jane considered that all was not, as Loki and Thor would say, in readiness. But there was  _ a _ classroom. There were math tudors. There was a nascent language program. There was rudimentary housing and enough food, even for Asgardians. Jane and Darcy had been working long hours to get everything ready in only three months. During that same time, Loki had been spending the same sort of hours building the language program the entire staff and body of apprentices would be using to learn English. And Thor had been memorizing the history and practical application of electromagnetism.

In fact, after much meal-time conversation on the topic, Jane and Thor finally did it. She sourced all the materials and she coached him in building it. It wasn’t much - really, it wasn’t. Just a small magnet, a coil of copper wire, and the rest of the dime store accoutrement necessary. In fact, just to prove a point, Jane didn’t buy anything for the project. She took all the materials out of her workshop, and liberated a magnet off the fridge.

Thor was ridiculously excited as Jane walked him through building his first generator, but she supposed, not his last.

She had considered peppering him with questions while they worked, but his focus was so intense she thought against it in the end. She did take a picture, though, of Thor deep in concentration, sitting at her lab table carefully coiling the copper, with Pratchett the kitten perched on his right shoulder.

Jane smiled at the memory as she checked in on Thor and Sharon unpacking and doing an initial rough catalogue of the library the All-Mother had gifted her. They had been at it for three days, and they added the beautiful leather tomes to the rather shabbier mass-produced paperbacks and hardcovers that Jane and Eric had put together for the edification of the apprentices.

They had thrown together a library of books, three copies each, on a variety of subjects, including but not limited to science, math, history, biography, with special emphasis on physics - both quantum and astro - and engineering - mechanical, electrical, and aeronautical. All of the books were particularly readable and not requiring advanced degrees to parse.

But now Thor and Sharon were adding to the library catalogue all four thousand odd volumes that the All-Mother thought essential for the Institute to have on hand. Eventually they would be fully translated and digitized for ease of searching. But for now it would be great to know what was in there and on what shelf it was located.

And tomorrow morning, it would begin. She would begin her work with the baby mages to continue the massive project she and Loki had taken on.

But now it was time to meet with her business manager and then the three teachers who would be creating the cultural, historical, and musical and artistic curricula for the kids.

* * *

“What?  _ What?  _ **_What?_ ** What do you mean I’m not invited?” he demanded.

Pepper Potts reclined on a gorgeous divan in the newly finished Stark Tower in New York City, visibly satisfied with her accomplishments on this project, and secretly satisfied that Elon Musk’s personal assistant still kept in contact with her.

“Grapevine has it Warren and Bill initially passed, but Melinda threw a fit, so they called back and got back on the list. Once in a lifetime, you know.” Pepper popped an olive in her mouth and got a bit more artisanal goat cheese for her crackers. They’d already had a small champagne toast, but now Pepper poured chilled thai coconut water into a tall lager glass for Tony. He was still on his health kick, and this would be a nice change from all the kale juice.

“Hmm. That’s nice,” he said, after tasting it. “Hey Jarvis, think Crown Prince Loki of Asgard has a cellphone yet?”

“I know he does, sir. I’ve just programmed his number into your phone.”

“Jarvis, why do you think I wasn’t invited?”

“Well, sir,” the AI began with the utmost tact, “I suppose it might have something to do with the manner in which you threatened His Highness before the entire Embassy yesterday morning. I couldn’t help but notice that the people who were not overwhelmed with shock and horror did seem to level murderous gazes in your direction. That includes the Princess and her staff, who I am given to understand are the ones organizing the weekends on Asgard. In fact, had not the Ambassador himself intervened, I should have thought we’d need to come and collect the pieces of you. Some of those warriors were bearing quite large axes.”

Pepper laughed. “Tony! You  _ said _ you were going to be nice.”

“Hey! I was nice! I was totally nice. Nice could have been my middle name. I mean, it wasn’t. It still isn’t. But it could have been. I shot no one. I took the helmet off when asked. Hell, I took the entire suit off and ate breakfast with them. Isn’t there something about breaking bread with people? It’s nice! And there was bacon. And kale. Niceness was everywhere.”

“Except with Princess Darcy, who wanted to kill you, and honestly, I do have sympathy with the urge.”

Tony made a wordless harumph of annoyance. “Okay,” he said sighing and sighing again. “How much grovelling do I need to do, here?”

“Jarvis, do you have the interaction on tape?” Pepper inquired.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Play it.”

Both were silent as the audio and video played around them in a 3D manner from a 360 table-top nano projector next to the olives. 

“Oh, Tony. We’re talking big time grovelling, and even then there are no guarantees. You can’t just stomp around pissing off powerful people who haven’t done anything wrong and expect them to immediately be able to see your finer qualities.”

Tony sighed again. “Alright. Ugh. Jarvis. Did you get her dress size?”

“I estimate the Princess Darcy to be a rather non-standard size 14.”

“Yeah, that was my thought too, but there was a lot of armor. I’ve never dealt with armor before. I mean, not real armor that I didn’t design. Shoes?”

“Size seven, sir.”

“Yeah, okay. Jarvis, I need two dozen couture dresses, shoes, and bags, and I need them to ship out in twelve hours.”

“This will incur significant cost both financial and in favors. Such dresses are not often found in size 14 unless ordered in advance.”

“Do it. Each one needs to include a card that says, ‘With my sincerest apologies for the slight against your husband.’ And my signature. Make sure the colors work with her skin tone, yeah?”

“Of course, Mr. Stark.”

“And for the Prince…” he trailed off, considering his options. “A case of Glenlivit, 50 year, a case of the Dom - no, make that two of each, and my two 1928 Krugs.Take it all from my cellars and send it immediately to the Prince. The card should say, ‘It was a stupid stunt, and I’m sorry if I caused you any embarrassment. Welcome to Earth.’ And my signature. Let me know when it’s been delivered.”

Tony looked over to Pepper with a hopeful look on his face.

She shook her head. Her expression was dubious.

“Their Institute’s all about collaboration of science and magic, right? Sounds expensive. Let’s go throw money at them. Jarvis. Alert the Stark Foundation that they’ll be granting the Institute a hundred million dollars a year, auto-renewable for ten years, negotiable thereafter, expressly for the advancement of the collaboration of science and magic. Have them notify the Institute’s head, Dr. Jane ...What’s her name?”

“Foster, sir.”

“Dr. Jane Foster immediately.”

Tony looked over at Pepper, his eyebrows high. He was holding his breath.

Pepper slowly closed her eyes and nodded her head.

Tony exhaled heavily.

“Okay. Give me a delivery confirmation on those dresses, Jarvis. And I want to know when the call has been made to Dr. Foster.”

“And when everything is delivered, then the grovelling can really begin,” Pepper said.

Tony nodded slowly. He knew that all too well.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we continue! 
> 
> Thank you for your patience and support during the hiatus of writing The Meddler. Good news? Loki of Midgard (book one) is now being shopped out to publishers, the rough draft of which you can still find here on AO3. And I've decided to finish The Meddler before transforming the rough draft of The Crown Prince into something publishable.
> 
> So! You know you want to join my mailing list. Run, don't walk.


	6. Wherein the Laughing Liar of Asgard Laughs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy chokes embarrassingly, Loki meditates a lot, Thor demonstrates his progress, the apprentices get their first lesson, and the Master of Lies remembers who he really is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my dear husband for being a Rockstar. And as an fyi, the scene between Loki and the apprentices has been written for... about two years. I edited it slightly, as I set it in this chapter. It's so exciting to see this future content finally used! Eeeek!
> 
> ::ahem::
> 
> Yes. On to the chapter. Enjoy!

Jane hurried up to Darcy just before dinner. “Can I grab you or do you need to do other stuff during dinner?”

“No, I don’t have anything on, and Loki wanted to sit with some of the warrior’s families tonight.”

Together the two women got in line to get their food. It was, presently, served cafeteria style and it had only taken twelve days for Darcy to impress upon everyone that she was content to wait in line just like everyone else. She loaded up her tray with a gigantic salad, a filet of salmon, some sauteed asparagus, and a little plate of flan. The chef had put aside two large pint glasses of freshly juiced vegetables for Jane and Darcy, and they were both icy cold.

They chose an end of the high table and were left alone for the meal, their various assistants close by but far enough away to pursue their own ends and give the women some privacy.

“Okay,” Jane started, after both women had a moment of silent gratitude over their meals. “What gives? I thought you told me everything that happened with Tony Stark at breakfast during our run?”

Darcy blinked and started cutting up the portion of her meal on a plate. It would shortly be tossed in the salad with the rest. Everything but the flan was going in.

“Pretty sure I did. Minus the drama, as requested.”

“You failed to mention the part where you buttered him up for a collaboration with the Institute. Or was that Loki?”

Darcy shook her head. “You were mentioned, and he petulantly demanded to know why you weren’t present, because he’s obviously a big, selfish dickhead who always gets what he wants. That was it. Seriously. And I spent the entire breakfast silently murderous, and Loki told me I wasn’t allowed to stab him with a fork.”

Darcy paused in her slicing and dicing to take a long drink of the kale juice. Because she could. Because no one else at the table was going to take it from her, so she might as well really enjoy it.

“Weeeell, something must have made an impression, because Sharon had a voicemail from the president of the Stark Foundation. We have our first grant, Your Highness,” Jane said with a giddy grin.

Darcy blinked. She really wouldn’t have thought that would be an outcome of breakfast. She shook her head again and wondered at her husband. It had to have been his charm. “Huh,” she finally settled on. Darcy shrugged. “How much?”

“A billion, over the course of ten years.”

Darcy half-snorted and half-choked on her juice. A coughing fit ensued. The hall got embarrassingly quiet as everyone waited to see if the Princess would be alright, or if she required medical attention. Borghild had closed half the distance to her before she held up one hand to the room in general, and with her face flaming red, croaked out, “I’m fine.”

“You know what this means?” Jane continued on after a suitable pause. Her enthusiasm, however, was undimmed. “It means that we can go on the accelerated schedule of construction for the Institute! Because there are absolutely no strings attached. Literally. I mean, the only specification was ‘to forward the collaboration of science and magic’ and that is it. I mean, I’m going to be adding staff just to keep track of granting guidelines, but if they’re all like this it’s going to be easy. I mean, they didn’t even ask for naming rights for the buildings.”

“How unusual,” Darcy snarked, her voice still raw and much lower than normal.

Their conversation continued somewhat one-sided as Jane rhapsodized about the accelerated plan versus the standard plan, and Darcy rested her voice. Darcy also kept her opinion of Mr. Fabulous Asshole Stark to herself. Was this some sort of non-apology apology? Or something else? What kind of favors was he expecting in return, and would Darcy be able to be the person to turn him down? Loudly? In front of witnesses? On national television?

Unfortunately, Darcy was getting quietly murderous again.

* * *

The furs were piled high on their bed and Darcy was cuddled into Loki. It was early yet, and usually the two would be talking and having sex late into the night.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said on a whine. No sex had been forthcoming, and no conversation would, either.

“No, darling. You have nothing to feel remorseful over. This is what your body needs right now. Rest. Rest, and I will hold you and keep you safe.”

Only moments later Darcy’s breathing evened out and Loki began to meditate, rather than worry. It was obvious to his mind that the pregnancy was beginning to take its toll on his wife already, and she was at most five weeks pregnant. Would this continue throughout all the long months of her waiting while the child grew within? This would definitely be part of her meeting with the healers come this weekend…

No. He would meditate.

Loki continued to hold Darcy, but took them both out of the flow of time. He did this for his beloved so she could have even longer rest, and for himself so he could have even longer meditation.

He quietened his mind and could see more and more clearly the troublesome thoughts. He went through several standard meditations from the Apprentice’s Guide which he had memorized through diligent practice long ago. By the end of the fourth one he was a great deal calmer, and by the end of the seventh he could see clearly that his mastery over the eighth and seventh, and definitely the sixth gate had weakened.

He spent the next six hours meditating outside of time while his beloved slept in his arms, and when he pulled them both back into the flow of time, rejoining the early evening in the compound, Darcy had already slept just over eight hours and Loki was finally ready with a firm foundation beneath him to work on the mastery of his ninth gate.

He slept then, his requisite four hours and when he woke sometime after midnight, Darcy did as well.

“I feel great,” she mumbled. “Mmm. ‘S dark out. D’I sleep through the day?” she continued to mutter and Loki’s brain translated her sleepy slur quickly enough.

And then he suddenly realized what his mother had alluded to.

There was another question he needed to ask about the flow of time, and her answer was yes. His question now was obvious. _Is it alright to take Darcy out of the flow of time as well? Significantly out?_

And Frigga had said yes.

Loki grinned and kissed Darcy’s nose.

“I shall tell you when you are fully awake my dear one.”

Darcy grinned sleepily and rolled toward him, snuggling down in the many layers of sheet, blanket, and fur that covered them. Her hands groped clumsily at first, and then with greater and greater dexterity.

Loki gasped and sighed in quick succession as Darcy drug her nails down his side and along his hip. He lay in thrall for a moment, luxuriating in the touch of her hand and thanking the fates once more for his beautiful wife with whom he was so perfectly matched, and his moral progress which made his life so much calmer and happier.

He considered his options in the feast that was their shared love, and then considered them a moment too long, apparently, for Darcy had begun shifting and wiggling down the bed, taking every bit of warm covering with her. As Loki began to get colder and colder, it became clearer and more obvious what was in store for him.

Darcy’s mind was largely quiet, except for the slightly less sleepy, but still gentle state of adoration she was frequently in when they were alone.

“I see you’ve taken all the warmth with you,” Loki pointed out quietly, and with a small smile. He didn’t ask for her to share a blanket. He didn’t really need it, not for the moment at any rate. And she did.

_I can make you warm,_ Darcy thought clearly as she sucked his left ball into her mouth.

Loki gasped, and groaned, and agreed.

* * *

Rooftop approached him as they set out for the morning run. Thor eased back momentarily to give him a bit of space.

“Sir, some interesting packages came from the personal residence of Tony Stark late last night. I took the liberty of scanning them, and they were clean, so I didn’t open them any further. But this was with them.”

Rooftop handed over an envelope, but at 4 AM it was too dark to read. Loki put the letter into his store and nodded.

“Where are the packages now?” Loki asked.

“Just outside your office.” _And Nat has a hundred bucks on it being an elaborate apology, but I say it’s anything else._

“Well, we shall see after I meet with the apprentices this morning. Thank you for letting me know,” Loki said, politely dismissing the man so that Thor could return.

When some distance grew between the two men in front and all else who followed, Loki spoke to his brother who had been practicing, muttering sentences to himself in English along the lines of, _‘My name is Thor and I like my friend’s cat. The cat’s name is Pratchett and he is name for a great author. Pratchett has a brother who are Dr. Who. Dr. Who are not real, but very good stories are being told about Dr. Who. Many people like to hear the adventures of Dr. Who.’_ It was flawed, but coming along nicely.

Thor stopped practicing his English after a moment.

“I have excellent news to share,” Loki began in High Elvish, which no one in the compound knew but himself, Thor, and one of his new apprentices who was nearly a quarter mile away.

“Father is awake?” Thor guessed, his pronunciation slurred and marred, likely from lack of practice.

“I do not know that. But Darcy is pregnant with my first born.”

Thor crowed with joy and slapped Loki on the back.

“Congratulations, brother! I knew you couldn’t be so virile for nothing! It is certain then?”

Loki smiled. “It was confirmed yesterday. Measures are being taken to maintain her safety. And the child’s.”

Thor took a moment in his response. “But you are not anxious,” he stated, looking more deeply into his brother and the situation than Loki was used to witnessing.

Loki shook his head. “No. I do not fear for her. It comes in waves, of course, and each time I seem to need to deal with it afresh, but meditation helps.”

“How do you meditate brother? Is it always with chaos and deceit?”

Loki smiled ruefully. Change. All was change with Thor. This is what he had looked for for so long in his older brother, and now that it had come, Loki felt so unprepared for it.

“No, indeed. Only once a day and sometimes not quite that. I need not do it for long, though it does tend to calm me when I’m deeply upset. Mostly my meditations are for the gates.”

“Ah, sorcery. Always working, always improving.”

Loki demurred. “No, Thor. You know, at least you’ve been told whether you’ve absorbed it or not, that any may break and master gates and all should, regardless of capacity to craft Dream with Source. It is only those who craft the dream who are required to do so in order to be taught.”

“You think I should, don’t you?” Thor asked after several quiet moments had passed between them with nothing but the light patter of their feet on the path, and the distant sound of those behind them.

“It would not harm you, and would only help your ultimate goal here.”

Again silence was between them.

“Would you help me? After I master English?” he asked, and the word _English_ was said with Thor’s now vastly improved intonation from High Elvish. It turned the word into a figment of poetry, highly aspirated and as light as a harvest zephyr.

“Of course,” Loki replied, honored at the request, and idly wondering if he would have to find time, or make it.

* * *

“My apprentices. I hope you have made the most of your free days. You will have two free days within each cycle of seven, but in truth they will be free only in your decision of how to structure them. You will be given many, many assignments that will require your ardent study and meditation during most if not all of your mornings, your evenings, and your free days. Use the time wisely.

“First, I shall tell you of all the difficult things you shall master, and well before your ten years with me are finished.

“You shall master English, the reading, writing, and speaking of it, which is one of the more common languages on Midgard, but truly only one of many thousands spoken here. It is the only language you will be asked to master, and the only language you will be asked to use without a translation spell, or an individual on hand to provide proper translation.

“You shall master the third and fourth gates, as well as the first two. Fear not on this point; it is not nearly so difficult as the first two, and for Nanna,” here he paused, and looked to his only apprentice not of Vanaheim nor Asgard, but of Alfheim, “it should be almost easy. Anyone should feel free, however, to go beyond this goal and break and master their fifth gate. Or whichever gate comes next, for that person.

“You shall master token exchange. I personally do not know why this is not a standard practice, as it is one of the most useful ways for any sorcerer or sorceress who has any particular gift to expand upon it and use it to the utmost.

“You shall learn of Midgard in this age, partake in some of its many cultures, learn of its hopes, dreams, sufferings and shames. I ask that when you do so, you bring the best of your moral progress to bear. It is easy to judge what is different, but that is no way to learn and grow even within yourself.

“And now to other things. I shall be present to you for at least six hours in each day. And you have undoubtedly noted that the Midgardian day - the cycle of light and dark - is somewhat, or perhaps drastically,” here he looked at Nanna, “shorter than what you are used to. So it is. But that is Midgard. Their days are short, their lives are short, and they waste not a moment of it. You shall have at least four more hours than they, however, for I shall take you out of time for such a span each day in order to meditate.

“As to the other two hours I shall be with you, from seven to nine in the morning on each working day, we shall be together, we thirteen. In the first hour I shall be instructing you, or we shall be working on projects together. For the second hour, I shall be available for your questions, as a group.

“I know you are accustomed, as I was myself at your age, to personally serving your mistress - washing her clothes, making her food, cleaning her home, waiting on her at table. Most of this will not be necessary, and you will need the time to study. You will, however, and on a rotation, be assisting the chef in the kitchen, washing the clothes and linens of your fellow quarter-mates, cleaning the common areas of your quarters, and yes, waiting at table upon myself and the Princess Darcy, when we are present and dining in the Enclosure. I will have cause to travel about this realm, but even in those times your lessons and meditations with me will continue for the most part.

“When it is your turn to wait at table upon myself and my wife, you will be inconvenienced in that you will necessarily need to eat afterwards. I have never thought this to be quite fair, so I will in turn give you my time and my undivided attention for thirty minutes, at some point during that day. It may pull you out of your regular studies or routine, as my own schedule may be,” and at this point Loki smiled, “ _chaotic._ But I promise dedicated and private time to each of you for your own use, on the day you dedicate your own mealtimes to me for my convenience. This time I give you will be an excellent opportunity for you to discuss your gate progress, ask questions about your studies or experiences, or air concerns you may have about anything at all. You may ask anything you wish. I promise absolute truth for every question I am at liberty to answer.

“In addition to this, I will also pull the apprentice of the day out of time for an additional hour in which to guide her or his meditation, to speed you on your way.

“And now it is time for me to describe to you our first project together. It will be done in stages. You shall learn the theory and practice of it as we go. The first of several we shall begin today. I shall harness your energy to mine and we shall make the first of the farming biodomes. We shall then spend the next many days analysing the use of Source and Dream in this fashion. When I am convinced that you have the general way of it, I shall harness _my_ energy to _yours,_ and in teams of three _you_ shall make the next four biodomes. We shall learn together, correct errors together, and the last will inevitably learn many things from the first. Do not let this dim your enthusiasm. I have found that _doing_ is the fastest route to mastery. Even when you make mistakes, you make more progress than one who makes none at all by virtue of one’s inaction.

“You may find this exciting. You may find it daunting. I warn you that life on Midgard flows at a frighteningly fast pace when compared to life on our home realms.

“Speaking of home, we have not yet many diversions or entertainments in the Enclosure, but they will be present soon. I fully expect every apprentice to spend at least one half day of your free time, or two evenings, engaging in something entertaining or rejuvenating. You will not have time for much more than that. Your workload will be heavy, but if you periodically step back to relax, even this heavy workload will not break you. If you do not, it will. This is my warning. Heed it.

“Now. To the farming biodomes. The goal is simple and elegant: form a dome that flows above as well as below the ground to entirely enclose a space. This dome allows sunlight in. It allows in beings bearing a certain token. It allows in equipment and cartons being a certain token. It circulates air at a regulated pace. It does not allow beings to pass, no matter their size, who do not bear that certain token, nor plants, nor items, nor even so much as pollen. It does not allow water to pass, not as liquid, solid, or in a cloudy state. Now, what aspects of Source and Dream would you imagine come into play in such a simple and elegant dome?”

Loki looked at his assembled apprentices as they swarmed around him while he walked and inwardly grinned. They adored him, which was… odd, and they were slightly overwhelmed each in their particular way. But they were capable. Of that he was certain.

Finally one met his eye and Loki called on him. A slight boy, gentle in appearance, the one called Tue from the village Kirgard in the foothills at the base of Kir, far from the capital.

“Yes, Tue.”

“Master Loki, are you certain this dome of which you speak is simple?”

Loki laughed. “Yes. It is simple. It allows somethings to pass, but not others, based largely on a system of token exchange. But do not confuse simple with easy. Simple implies it is not terribly complex. Easy implies it is not terribly difficult. The gates, for example, are all quite simple and straightforward. I know no one who would call them all easy.”

A young man tugged at his cuff and Loki looked over. It was Fiske, a child of Vanaheim, and one of the three apprentices, all from Vanaheim, who had mastered the first two gates, and broken the third already.

“Yes, Fiske.”

“But, Master Loki, you just said the third and fourth gate might be _almost_ easy for Nanna. That’s because she’s of Alfheim and her way does not view war and the self as ours does, correct?”

Loki laughed and the entire group continued to walk where he led, over to the area marked for the biodomes. It was an easy distance away from the temporary dining hall and his long strides ate up the land in between. The apprentices trotted to keep up.

“Yes, that is my assumption, though of course I might be wrong. No gate is easy to master, though Mistresses of the Ninth say they all could be. But as we are all quite different, each of us has an easier time with at least one gate, that is to say, an easier time than our peers seem to have with the same gate.”

And his elven apprentice wished to ask the next question, which was not altogether surprising. She had only mastered the first gate, he noted. He also remembered from the letters that came with all his apprentices that she was the great, great, great grandaughter of the old Queen of Alfheim. The current Queen was her many great aunt, for the succession of the Sylvan Throne ever went sideways, like root and branch, before it went up.

“Yes, Nanna.”

“Master Loki, what gate was almost easy for you?”

_Precocious, indeed._

“Fate,” he said wryly, and then called on Nanna again when she tugged politely at his cuff and met his eye.

“Master Loki, was your fate an easy one to accept? Is it because you are a prince?”

Loki sighed, seeing more deeply into Nanna’s complacency and why she had only mastered the first gate when gate mastery came so much easier to those in the trees. He took a deep breath and told the truth. He would lie to these young ones no more so than he would lie to Darcy, not if he could help it.

“No. Quite the contrary. It was because I already knew the specifics of my fate. A mad seer told me once, long ago, when I was younger than you are now.” There were gasps. He understood well their horror, and they knew but the smallest part of the horrifying tale. “And then he committed suicide in front of me,” Loki added quietly, an afterthought.

More gasps, more tugs on his cuffs, but Loki ignored them because something felt off. Something was not quite right, and Loki always listened to the voice that told him such things. Now it was only a matter of figuring out what was going on.

_Look away little Loki, for you must not see what comes next._

But no, that wasn’t right. He had run away in the middle of the seer’s prophecy.

No. No, wait.

No, he ran away at the _end_ , because it ended when he ran away. He ran away, back to the palace, back to his mute and ashen mother, back to his father who had given him such comfort, such words that braced him up and led him to strive so hard, learn so much, be always better this day than the one before. That was definitely what had happened.

_Look away little Loki… you have your fate, and I have mine... I have spent my mind in its purchase, this one hope I hold out for you._

Walking even as he delved deep inside of himself, he removed himself from the panicky emotions that had always accompanied the series of memories.

_Laughing liar of Asgard,_ he heard echoing in his mind, but for the first time it was said in a loving manner, no condemnation in the memory. It was said as if to remind him of his own capacity, to remind him of something _good,_ and yet it had always been an insult in the past. It still seemed to be so now, except…

_Laughing liar of Asgard._

It was said with so much love. How could it be an insult?

Loki breathed deeply as he tried to examine his confusion logically.

He seemed now to have two sets of memories, in part conciliatory, in part contradictory. One he knew had actually occurred in the time and place in which it appeared. One could not have. So what was true?

A sudden image of Mistress Oydis patting him on the cheek, telling him sweetly he was a commonplace liar, pretty, but uninteresting.

_Like hell I am._

Another deep breath and Loki sunk inside of himself to that deep internal place where he could see and feel the fabric of lies around him, not just vaguely or occasionally or even with one particular person before him, but in intensely vibrant color, texture, and sound all around him.

He saw all that his apprentices wanted to keep from him, all they had discussed two nights before, all the individual issues they carried, all of the little ways they lied to themselves and to one another. He catalogued each with barely any thought at all, making a mental note to check in on them each later. And then Loki turned to the issue at hand.

In one hand he held a little statue, a miniature of himself fleeing the seer’s tent. And he could see layers of both truth and lie, source and dream, swirling.

And in the other hand he held a similar little statue, a miniature of the seer, sitting in his chair, a mad and desperate look in his eye, a hunting dagger sheathed fully in his chest.

And he could see that there was almost nothing at all but truth around the second statue, even thought it occurred to him in a dream within the dream.

And suddenly he could see that each terrifying nightmare he had ever had of the encounter was trying to lead him to this moment, this moment when it was less of a nightmare and more of a vision, this moment where he could hear the _rest_ of the prophecy, but he hadn’t been ready. So he’d been stuck in the nightmare. In his waking and in his sleeping he had been plagued by the fear of what could befall Yggdrasil at his hands. Waking or sleeping, his life had been one long painful nightmare underneath it all.

Until he came here.

Until he met Darcy.

Until he broke the ninth gate.

Loki laughed in relief and joy and wonder.

Coming back to his normal senses, Loki breathed deeply and felt the release of a burden he had carried his entire life.

He also realized they had overshot the nearest farming biozone area, but were nearly to the edge of the third, which would do just as well.

Gathering his own mental focus, Loki then gathered the apprentices like a hen would her chicks and taught them the gestures and the words for the simple act of temporarily sharing the ability to craft the dream with source. Then each apprentice in turn stepped up to him, boldly taking his palm in theirs, their forearms meeting clumsily, elbows touching. Each one Loki pulled closer, past the point of polite distance. Their chests touched their combined forearms and their noses - for the tall ones - were not that far apart.

Each apprentice repeated the ancient phrase. “I offer you my aid, I give you my will. Let us craft the dream together, as you imagine.”

To each apprentice, Loki answered. “I accept your aid and will do you no harm. Let us craft the dream together.”

Afterwards, each looked rosy cheeked, but it was nothing to what they would feel after he had finished the work they’d come here to do today. Which was nothing, still, to what they would feel like when they harnessed _his_ power.

Generally, this was not the done thing between masters and apprentices, but that was largely because few mistresses were willing to yoke their power with anyone else, much less their apprentices. Also, few had the need to do such large works as would require yoked power. Finally, there were side-effects, such as needing to treat your apprentices as equals, by which few mistresses could abide.

Loki cared not for such conventions - this was an important aspect of working collaboratively, and his apprentices would learn not only how to do it but how to treat it with respect.

“Now it begins,” he said.

All were wide-eyed, their attention riveted to his every word and action. He went to stand closely to the edge of the circle, spray-painted in bright orange on the hard ground. Loki indicated that they could follow him, but stay inside the circle. He held his hand out, the point of one relaxed finger demarking the edge of the containment circle he would draw, directly over the spray-painted line. He did so in silence, at a moderate pace. It was far easier than usual, even for such a large containment circle as he drew presently. Twenty minutes later, he was finished and ready to attend to the second part of his work, which would require him to make another circuit, this time dancing slightly, a little hop and skip and twirl added to his stride.

His words were sing-song and in Aesir. In that language they rhymed and were measured in the perfect cadence. He wove his spell in his native tongue because in such situations, nothing was better than your cradle language.

_Yggdrasil, Yggdrasil, your secrets we do not guess_   
_Doors and branches are your domain_   
_We request but window panes_   
_One glass orb, not unlike a door_   
_A door unto itself, itself_   
_To keep within within_   
_And keep without without_   
_A farming sphere where the soft wind blows_   
_Sun shines not magnified but dimmed_   
_To keep within within, without without_   
_Till harvest time and all is done_   
_Till tit for tat, and fruit for dirt exchanged and all is done_   
_And begins to begin again  
Till next harvest time is done_

_Yggdrasil, Yggdrasil, a window we wish_   
_An orb to farm as done of old on realms not far from here_   
_Not magnified as then for them_   
_But dimmed for us for here for now_   
_Hard rock will yield us fruit and grain_   
_Bare desert will bloom in reds and greens and blues  
Wasting not, willing not, renting tearing never never_

_Yggdrasil, Yggdrasil, for us you wait so patiently_   
_Your children to wake up_   
_This realm you shepherded tenderly to ever safer shores_   
_Create for us a windowed garden_   
_A wonder to behold_   
_Realm within realm  
And food at harvest time_

Loki stopped, his spell finished and his task nearly done.

“Brace yourselves,” he said on a whisper and heard it repeated several more times behind him. It was time for the third and final part.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He allowed his sense of present chaos to alert him to every living thing within his containment sphere. On the exhale, he transported every living thing 2100 feet to the right. Including himself.

As the apprentices were all gasping and eeping, while small and medium-sized desert creatures were all scurrying away, Loki faced them all and bowed deeply at the waist, his palms held out in front of him, flat and open to the sky.

At the depth of his bow, he spoke. “I thank you for your aid. Our task is done. Your will is your own. Nothing is owed but a debt of gratitude and friendship, which I will pay.”

_And that,_ he thought wryly, _is the real reason why no mistress would borrow anything from an apprentice._

“Now!” he said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them a bit. “What did you notice?”

Twelve pairs of eyes eagerly met his and he grinned, picking an apprentice at random. They walked as they talked, and in an hour and twenty minutes he dropped the children off with Jane to introduce them to the two mathematics tutors who would take them from multiplication to multivariate calculus and beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy!
> 
> If you liked it, drop me a line in the reviews. I love to hear what people think of the story.
> 
> And if you really liked it, sign up on my mailing list to hear word of when I publish the _**original fiction**_ version of this story which is even more awesome and full of win that this very cool rough draft has been. (No really. It got even better, and there are more scenes and less continuity errors.) You can join the mailing list [ here](https://goo.gl/forms/gkKL4qTBzDQo2mz92). [EDIT: The link was wonky, but now it's fixed. Thanks!]
> 
> Thanks for reading, and stay cool!


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